Cherry Bounce

As Memorial Day draws nigh, I may be the only American blogger who isn’t discussing grilling, dining al fresco, or nattering on about the joys of summertime eating. Not that there’s anything wrong with grilling or the foods of summer. But if you’re hankering for yet another rib recipe, or need a twist on coleslaw, I must regretfully send you elsewhere. Today at the IK we’re making cherry bounce, which has little, if anything, to do with holiday eating. Or more accurately, drinking.

These Rainer cherries did not go into the bounce. They were served to John, who ate them unadorned, as befits such rare and expensive creatures. Before meeting their fate, they struck a pose with their Bing brethren.

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Cherry bounce is an old American drink. Many are the recipes for it: some tip their cherries into jars of rum, vodka, or brandy, screw on the cap and wait, allowing a slow exchange of fruit juice and alcohol. Others bake the cherries into collapse, pouring off the juices into a waiting jar. Still others mash fresh cherries into bits, atomizing the fruit while netting every last drop of goodness. The resulting elixir is mixed with booze, poured into an immaculate vessel, and there you have it: cherry bounce.

In the IK, cherry juice mingles with rum and cheap Armagnac. And I do mean cheap. Authentic French Armagnacs, the kind with an appellation d’ originie contrôlée and those maddening wax covered corks, should never be used to make cherry bounce. They should be drunk, preferably after a meal involving copious amounts of duck fat.

The IK’s cherry bounce is actually two recipes. Life is so complicated sometimes.

The first time I made Eugenia Bone’s baked cherry jam, from The Kitchen Ecosystem, I noticed her recipe for cherry bounce, which is in fact a sub-recipe of the jam, utilizing the baked cherry jam juices. This is great, but when I blogged about it, I realized a stand-alone bounce recipe would be necessary. After all, what about people who didn’t want to make the jam?

Epicurious.com offers a workable method for extracting cherry juice. Frankly, it’s got some drawbacks, which I’ll get into, but the resulting bounce is so good that it’s worth the hassle.

Let’s start with Eugenia Bone’s recipe. This assumes you’ve made baked cherry jam.

If you are making the cherry bounce from scratch, let’s walk through the process. First you’ll need to pit the cherries.

For the cherry pitterless, myself included, I had advised the “flat of chef’s knife” method, which is effective but sends cherry juice splattering everywhere. Upon (re)reading the Gourmet Cookbook, I realized one may pit with fingers, and happily suggest you try it. While still messy, it’s better than my knife method. This isn’t the time to wear your new Eileen Fisher asymmetrical white top, but your kitchen won’t look like the IK blogging massacre.

Okay, now the dubious part. Epicurious instructs us to put the cherries in a bowl and go at them with a potato masher. For good measure, set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl. Add your mashed cherries. Now lean on those poor mangled dears until every last drop of juice flees into the waiting bowl.

Epicurious advises using a “sturdy spoon” for this operation. It occurred to me a wooden pestle might be better, but I resorted to my hands, mulching the cherries through my fingers. Midway through this operation, my cat Lucy appeared in the kitchen, meowing urgently.

This isn’t the kitchen, but it’s an excellent example of what I’m talking about.

Sometimes Lulu gets miffed while I’m cooking, and starts meowing nonstop. She’s an extremely talkative girl. This can be annoying, but given her traumatic past–she’s a rescue, and was abused–I try not to get irritated. Anyway, there’s Lu, yelling her kitty head off, wanting attention. And I’m looking like Lady Macbeth.

Mangling cherries in this manner leaves you with fresh cherry juice, sure, but the poor cherries are pulp, which you are instructed to “reserve for later use.” What “use” isn’t specified, because what are you supposed to do with cherries that look like they’ve been…well, pushed through a strainer?

Then there’s cleaning the strainer. Washing fine-mesh strainers is surely a special nook of dishwashing hell, right around the corner from cleaning food processors. I’d recommend a good long soak in hot soapy water (I was thinking the strainer, but maybe you’d like one, too). Also a toothbrush to reach all those nooks and crannies.

So IK, I hear you asking, why am I doing this? Why am I making a huge red mess when I could just be eating fresh cherries and buying myself a bottle of kirsch? Why subject myself to undue pain and suffering? Isn’t life hard enough? Why martyr myself to cherries?

You’re right. I hear you, as the kids say. Unfortunately, this recipe is even better than the first. Fresh cherry juice is beautiful to behold, a viscous, deep ruby, verging on purple. It is even more beautiful to drink, with just a hint of sweetness and true cherry flavor, which is hard to duplicate. Provided you don’t use utter rotgut, the finished product doesn’t taste of alcohol at all; instead, it’s smooth and surprisingly mellow. Cherry bounce is a drink that can only be made at home, and truly is worth the bother.