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Drink

Cherry Bounce

A cherry liqueur made by macerating cherries in brandy or whisky, then adding water and sugar to create a syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cherry Bounce

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the cherries

  1. Combine 15 pounds of morello cherries with 1 gallon of French brandy or Monongahela whiskey.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 3 to 4 months.

  3. Pour off the liquor and add 2 quarts of water to the cherries.

  4. Let the water sit on the cherries for 3 weeks.

  5. Pour off the water and combine it with the liquor.

Sweeten and finish

  1. Add 4 pounds of sugar to the mixture and heat to create a syrup.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Morello cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour that the spirit extracts over months of steeping.
French brandy or monongahela whiskey
Acts as the solvent that draws flavour and colour from the cherries and preserves the liquor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the tartness of the cherries and the alcohol's bite.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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