Some months ago I began an experiment making Cherry Bounce. This was driven by the memory of my father telling stories of making Cherry Bounce when he was a kid. He continued to make it later when I was a child. I don’t recall ever tasting MB’s recipe and, unfortunately, I do not have it to duplicate. So, I was driven to the internet to find something I could use as a guide to making my own. What I found were many different recipes for making Cherry Bounce, some variations of which I used in two previous tests batches. Both came out good and were quite drinkable, but I was just not sure I had achieved “cherry nirvana” yet.
My two previous attempts were quite similar. Both used dried tart cherries (which my wife scoffed at, but that was all I had to work with). One was cooked with Sazerac Rye Whiskey added after, and the other was not cooked and had vodka for the alcohol. After several months stored away “aging” in mason jars, I tasted the two samples. Both were good, but the rye version was much more complex, and the clear winner, in my opinion.
Fresh Bing cherries are now available in the stores, so I decided to try another test with fresh cherries. Most of the “old” recipes called for fresh, tart, wild cherries, and sweet Bings would be a departure—but they were available. We began a third test batch today.
Janis, my spouse and cooking expert, and I reviewed several recipes and made some adjustments we thought might be an improvement. As mentioned, we started out with fresh, sweet, Bing cherries. As in the two previous test batches, I used turbinado sugar rather than refined white sugar. Turbinado has a bit of the raw molasses taste to its flavor and may not add much to the final product, but I like it and well, that’s what I wanted to use. Get over it.
Part of the decision process was how to handle the fresh cherries. I bought a nice cherry pitter from Amazon and pitted all the cherries we used. Since we wanted to save the leftover cherry mash for other uses after we made the Cherry Bounce, I elected to keep the pitted cherries whole rather than chop or just split them. I leaned heavily toward a recipe that called for cooking, reasoning the flavors might be more intense. And since the rye whiskey gave a more complex flavor in my previous tests, I decided to stick with it as the alcohol base.
Cherries pitted in my brand new, fancy-dancy, semi-automatic, cherry pitter, I cooked them down over a low heat with the turbinado sugar and some lemon juice. (The cooked mash tastes absolutely divine!) The Sazerac Rye Whiskey was added to the cooled mash. That has been put away to age.
Now the hard part—waiting!
I will publish the exact recipe once I have determined I have it refined to my satisfaction. Meanwhile, I plan to run another series of tests, using the cherry mash from the original rye test batch and some from this new batch. These tests will be for a new cocktail I have tentatively named “MB’s Cherry Bounce Cocktail.” He loved Old Fashioned Cocktails, and my recipe will be based on an Old Fashioned. More on that once I begin that test, which will probably be today as I celebrate July 4th.
Cheers for now.
Catahoula Chronicles 