In retrospect this is a pretty straight-forward homemade cherry liqueur, but it was actually inspired by a drink from Normandy called pommeau.  To make pommeau, Normans combine two parts fresh apple juice with one part Calvados (apple brandy), then age the resulting mixture in barrels for several months before bottling.  You can purchase this traditional, aged pommeau at fine liquor stores, but fresh pommeau made with just-pressed cider and consumed without barrel-aging has become one of my favourite parts of the cider season.

This formula (two parts fresh juice, one part spirit made from that juice) occurs in a number of other places.  Pineau de Charentes is another famous example, made with grape must and Cognac.

So I wondered if the same could be done with our local cherries.  I ran fresh Evans cherries through a food mill to make a viscous juice, added a bit of white sugar, then mixed in Kirsch, which is pure cherry distillate.  Not having any local cherry spirit, I used Hugel Kirsch, from Alsace.

The liqueur is the very essence of sour cherry.  It is supremely well-balanced, the bright acidity of the raw cherry juice mellowed by the sugar.  While delicious on its own, it reminded me a great deal of the Danish liqueur Cherry Heering, which suggests that this homemade cherry liqueur is probably useful in mixed drinks.

Hm…