Does anyone else here think that the cherries marketed specifically for cocktails are: (a) not very good; and (b) ridiculously expensive? In fact, I can’t recall ever eating one and being impressed in any way. I’ve stopped buying them.
What I do now is steep the Costco dried Montmorency cherries in whatever liquor and keep some in small canning jars.
One of my favorite cocktail bars in Berlin, Stagger Lee macerates their cherries in some type of booze (brandy? I can’t remember), and serves a toothpick with 3 of those babies alongside their fantastic Mint Julep.
I don’t make enough cocktails at home that call for cherries, so I haven’t felt the need to make my own.
My Costco has started carrying the Fabbri brand amarena cherries, which I find DELICIOUS, In a large jar for a very reasonable price. I canned some cocktail cherries of my own making this sumner so I haven’t bought the Fabbri brand recently, but they are better than Luxardo in my opinion.
The “wild” aspect sounds promising, although at $2.89/oz, that may not be bargainish. The Costco tag says $0.53/oz , so that’s a much better deal. How long you think it’ll be before they’re D/C’d?
I think the dried Montmorency go for $8.59 for 20 oz. bag or $0.43/oz, and those ounces don’t include water and syrup. Per cherry, there’s probably a big price difference.
As a kid I remember getting the cherry from my Dad’s manhattan that was soaked in the cocktail… it was delicious, sweet, smoky, etc. My prob with the Luxardo’s is the texture and super heavy syrup, which prevents it from soaking up those flavors. The Tillen Farms MM’s are more of a blank canvass.
My local Costco did not have these today. A helpful floor worker looked them up, and thought they’d already been d/c’d, although he found some 40 miles away.
I’ve also enjoyed Bada Bings for purchased cherries. First recommended to me by a dear friend who ran the bar program at Brennan’s in Houston for many years before he passed. I don’t encounter them very often and now live in cherry growing country so have made a variety of my own the past few years.
Thanks. I still have a partial jar of Bada Bings in one house’s fridge. IMO, they’re not bad, and substantially cheaper than the other specialty cocktail brands.
They are tasty BUT so doggone pricy any more, I’m not willing to splurge. I guess I have too many hobbies + travel desires so I cut corners here 'n there. Badda Bings and mine will have to do for me :D.
Hope Amazon wraps yours better than they did mine. Leaky box with broken jar of cherries set in front of my apartment door stained the carpet. I order jarred cherries now , or any breakable foodstuff, from places that sell only food; they know how to wrap.