Cherries were on sale and my brain needed a break from working on my startup 24/7. So I decided to make not one, but two very different cherry cordials. The first is inspired by this wild cherry cordial recipe, and the second one by this recipe.
Here’s a big bowl with about 4 cups of nicely washed cherries. Next, pit the cherries. To make life easier, I’ve taken the pitless half and put it in the blender. The other half where it is difficult to detach the pit, I’ve left in the bowl for the second recipe.
Now, blend the pitted half to a pulp. Not extremely smooth. Slightly chunky is fine.
Now add about half as much sugar as cherry pulp. I’ve used granulated raw sugar. You can use any kind.
Add in about as much lemon juice as sugar. In my case, this was about the juice of two lemons
Now blend it all together once more.
Pour the cordial into a jar and cover it tightly with a cheesecloth or kitchen towel. It needs to breathe. Store it in a place at room temperature. Once a day, every day, stir and taste it. Every day the concoction will become less sweet. In 3-5 days, when the cordial reaches the desired sweetness, close the lid and refrigerate it. It will stay for about a month.
That was cordial #1. Now let’s use the rest of the cherries for cordial #2.
Here’s some leftover dried-up ginger from what I use in tea every day. I’m using this instead of a small stick of fresh grated ginger.
Put the ginger in a quart of water and start heating it.
Next, put in some lemon zest
Now put in all the cherries
Add half a cup of sugar. Roughly the same amount as in the first cordial.
Add in the juice of about two lemons. Roughly the same as in the first cordial.
Bring the mixture to a boil. Then simmer for about 10 minutes.
While it simmers, mush the cherries as much as you can.
After 10 minutes, strain the concoction into a bowl.
Next, pick out all the seeds and ginger out of the cherries.
After that, blend the remaining cherries into a pulp and strain it into the cordial.
I took the remaining cherry pulp and put some of the liquid cordial with it in a bottle. This is great to have on ice cream or yogurt.
This is the cordial. I let both the bottles cool to room temperature and then put them in the fridge.
And, of course, I had to try it out. Here’s a simple cocktail recipe with the cordial:
1.5 oz Vodka
1.5 oz Cordial
A dash of bitters
I swap out simple syrup for my cordial to turn any cocktail recipe into something even better. One of my favorites is the El Chililo cocktail. If you use cordial #2 for that, you can skip the tabasco because the ginger provides a decent kick.