At this time of year I really enjoy having nights in with my friends, watching cheesy Saturday-night TV and enjoying a good home-cooked meal. We also like to mix up the occasional cocktail and this week I tried out a new ingredient for our evening cocktails: cherry juice. When I picked up some cocktail ingredients at the supermarket, I came across Cherry Good and my mouth started watering! I was sure it would go nicely with the limes, lemons, juices and mixers in my trolley so when I got home I looked up drink recipes on their website and tried out a few.
The first recipe I tried was a cherry sour, because whisky sours is one of my favorite drinks ever and I wanted to know how it would compare if mixed up with cherry juice. Thankfully it was delicious and I tried a couple more of these cheeky cocktail recipes over the course of the weekend. Here they are, and I hope that you’ll enjoy them too:
Cherry Sour: 2 measures vodka, 6 measures cherry juice drink, 1 measure freshly squeezed lemon juice, 2 measures lemonade, garnish with a fresh cherry on a stick or a slice of lemon. Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour over vodka, Cherry Good and lemon juice. Shake to mix and chill. Pour into a tall glass with ice and top up with the lemonade.
Michigan Impossible 2 measures whisky, 4 measures Cherry Good juice, 1 measure freshly squeezed lime juice, 1 measure sugar syrup and optional 2 measures of lemonade to make a taller drink with ice. Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour over whisky, cherry juice, lime juice and sugar syrup. Shake to mix and chill. The lemonade is optional, to make a longer drink in a taller glass with ice. Sugar syrup is easy to make, by dissolving sugar into water (50/50) and heating it. Even simpler is pouring boiling water onto sugar and stirring, but make sure it’s cool before you use it!
Non-alcoholic cherry and honey: 200ml Cherry Good cherry juice drink, 100ml water, juice of half a lemon, 2 tablespoons honey, a pinch of salt (preferably unprocessed sea salt) Mix all the ingredients together, until the honey is dissolved. Add the salt last and adjust the amount to suit your own taste – not too salty.
These recipes are fast becoming my firm favourites and I will definitely be adding these to my Christmas party cocktail list too. Let me know if you give them a try and remember to drink responsibly! I also tried mixing up my own cocktail using the juice and here’s what I came up with:
Cherry Apple 1 measure apple schnapps, 2 measures Cherry Good, 2 measures apple juice. Fill a tall cocktail glass with crushed ice and pour in the ingredients and stir to mix.