Cherry Heering has been produced in Denmark since 1818 to an original secret recipe handed down through five generations, and is the original “Cherry Brandy.”
The cherries – a special strain of cherry is used – the small, dark Stevens Cherry which has been evolved from an ancient variety still to be found growing wild in parts of Denmark, are pressed together with stones to create a unique cherry taste, and then placed in wooden casks with more spirit added together with spices. No artificial flavours or colouring is used. In order to ensure that the rich taste of the cherries is maximized, the blend needs to rest and circulate for several months. 3-5 years later the product will be bottled.
As i really love cherries it isn`t hard for me to like this product especially since it really is of a very good quality. I find the taste just sweet enough, its deep,warm and rounded with a very pleasant cherry flavor. It`s an essential ingredient in the Singapore Sling and Blood and Sand cocktails. And Blood and Sand is a cocktail which is a favorite of mine, so here it is :
BLOOD AND SAND
This drink has got its name from the film starring Rudolf Valentino as a bullfighter,in 1922. Its served at Tiki Ti with a top pouring of tequila while the crowd led by one of the Mikes yells toro toro tooooorooo..
I wanted to try that (the tequila part) but if I sit here at home yelling toro, toro, toro while pouring a drink I`m not sure how the people here would react. I could be thrown out head first.
For my Blood and Sand I decided to try my Yamazaki 10, wonderfully inspired by my friend Chris who used Yamazaki 12 in his version of this drink. And blood oranges…I just love them! and of course I want to use them as much as I can while they still are in season.
* 1 ounce Yamazaki 10
* 1 ounce fresh-squeezed blood-orange juice
* ¾ ounce Cherry Heering
* ¾ ounce sweet vermouth
* splash tequila
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top with a little splash of tequila. Garnish with pineapple and a brandied cherry.
It tasted great with the Yamazaki and the tequila topping, very interesting. I will definetily make more of these. For garnish I used a pineapple/brandied cherry garnish lazily strewn on top of the foam, mmmm…
Inspired by Blood and Sand i made another little cocktail that i call Cherry and Sand which also was a part of the float themed TDN a while ago.
CHERRY AND SAND
1 oz Bourbon
1 oz dark Jamaican rum
¾ oz Cherry Heering
0.5 tsp simple syryp
Top with Lemon Soda
Float Lemon Hart 151
Shake over ice and servi with crushed ice in a highball glass, garnish with fresh mint.
To round it up i made a tiki drink, a version of the Aloha cocktail:
ALOHA COCKTAIL #2
This cocktail is based on the Aloha cocktail page 55 in Sippin Safari.The original recipe uses 151 Bacardi rum and light Puerto Rican rum. I switched the Angostura bitters for their orange bitters, used hibiscus grenadine and upped the orange juice to 1 oz from 0.5. Apart from that its the same recipe as in the book.
0.5 oz white rum
0.5 oz JWray overproof
1.0 oz fresh orange juice
0.5 oz fresh lime juice
1/4 oz Cherry Heering
0.5 oz hibiscus grenadine
2 dashes Angostura orange bitters
Shake and strain into a ice filled glass. Garnish cherry and pineapple leaves or pineapple slice. This cocktail went down way too easily, its really tasty.
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I’m also a huge fan of the blood oranges and am always thrilled when I find the first crop of the season at the local Farmers’ Market! Unfortunately, I’ve found that the organic ones I buy there tend to mold quickly if not refigerated. Thankfully, I recently found a local grocery store that carries non-organic (and therefore less expensive and longer-lived) blood oranges that are just as tasty! Try the juice with Domaine de Canton and Champagne! Delicious!
I assume you used the traditional sweet vermouth in the Blood and Sand, although Noilly Prat is associated with dry, French vermouth.
I have an empty ‘Peter Heering’ bottle from maybe 30-40 years ago. I need to get around to doing the research to date it.
JenTiki, the blood oranges are just so lovely! Unfortunately Domaine de Canton is not sold here.
Sylvan, i used what i can get here, Noilly Prat.
This delightful stuff also shows up as “dash of cherry cordial” in drinks around our place such as Boothby’s Ruby Cocktail (http://www.metagrrrl.com/bibulous/2009/02/ruby-cocktail.html)
Tiare, I did the same drink the other night, but wanted a lower octane version, so I used ginger syrup instead of Canton. It had less bite, and obviously was a bit sweeter than the original, but it would be perfect for a brunch when you don’t want to get snockered at the beginning of your day.
Ruby Cocktail looks nice Dinah. I so wish i could find the antica here as well as Sloe gin.
Jen, using ginger syrup, that`s what i would like to do!
Thanks Comedyman. The ones i like the most of these are the Blood and Sand and Cherry and Sand.
T
try a bottle of stock cherry liqueur. its an italian cordial. see if you can taste the difference.when my boss got into an argument with the cherry heering people,we had to invent something else.we didnt sell alot of cherry heering, but it was very popular at weddings and bar=mitzvahs.