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Drink

Essence Op Cherries

A cherry liqueur made by macerating cherries in alcohol, then adding proof spirit and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Essence Op Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Remove the stalks from the cherries but keep the stones.

  2. Place the cherries in a wide‑mouthed jar and pour in the strong alcohol.

  3. Cork the jar securely and let it macerate for 8 to 10 months.

  4. Decant the liquor and replace it with a pint of proof spirit.

  5. After 2 months, decant again and press the fruit.

Blend and sweeten

  1. Mix the pressed liquor with the two macerations.

  2. Dissolve 1 part powdered sugar for each 4 parts by weight of liquor.

Rest and filter

  1. Allow to stand for a few days, then filter.

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. Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Supply the fruit flavour, colour and juice that the alcohol draws out.
Strong alcohol
Extracts flavour and aroma from the fruit and stones and helps preserve the liquor.
Proof spirit
Replaces the drawn-off liquor so the second maceration keeps extracting flavour from the fruit.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the sharpness of the cherry liquor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully. Powdered sugar must dissolve completely in the liquor before filtering. Undissolved sugar settles out and can cloud the finished essence, so the few days of standing should give it time to clear.

“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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