Any “cherry brandy” would be fine and you don’t need much. If pushed, perhaps a DIY involving an “airline bottle” of brandy and mash of frozen cherries? And Caitlin M said above the recipe she just used dark rum or good brandy.
I have a bottle of Dekuyper Cherry Brandy lingering here – bought for a festive cocktail recipe a few years ago and forgotten.
Has anyone considered margarine as a possible sub? Waiting to be flamed by the usual naysayers but I grew up on it due to post war rationing. I made chocolate chip cookies using the store brand cookie mix, egg and a stick of Imperial margarine from Aldi instead of butter and they are fine as a house cookie for us. Not planning christmas baking with it but just thought it was worth mentioning.
I really don’t think having kirsch or another cherry eau de vie is very important to these cookies, as the chocolate and cinnamon are the dominant flavors.
Thanks so such MTT! I totally missed that Caitlin wrote that: I just read the recipe 
. I do have rum, and also a bit of cherry heering…
A classic!
Lucky me: DH doesn’t care for the rosemary here (too overpowering). I had the entire batch all to myself. I’m going to keep that in mind for next year. 
If this goes on next year and I miss butter sale-prices, I’m more likely to change over to recipes that are designed to use shortening, or convert a recipe to use butter-flavored shortening by adjusting the liquid. For a couple of years my baking-buddy still managed to make great desserts while working-around a suspected dairy allergy in her family. As we experimented, we found that the then-available margarines were not the flavors we recalled from our childhood days (when, yes, everyone baked with margarine and almost never had butter). So shortening and recipe-selection filters became the standard. And for her family, almond milk worked better (taste-wise) than coconut milk for most recipes.
A friend of mine keeps kosher, so does a lot of baking with marg. She said that it’s not quite as good as with butter… but still not bad!
Try olive oil.
I always wish we had a haha button!
My friend’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are pareve, made with Fleischmann’s margarine, and they’re the best I’ve ever had.
Could also do half butter and half shortening, or half butter and half margarine, if you want to save some money, but cover some of the taste some shortenings or margarines bring to the cookies.
I’m not sure if it’s a particular brand of margarine that gives off the chemical taste in some cookies.
I can tell with the wedding cookies in Pittsburgh when bakers use margarine or shortening instead of butter. I’m surprised how many people use margarine or shortening in the cookie table cookies, but they’re baking a lot of cookies for people they barely know, so I think cost is a big factor.
KAF has a choco-chip cookie recipe which is about half butter and half shortening. It’s one of the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve baked.
Adorbs! The grandies will love these. Edible Tomten. Now if I can only find the strawbs…
these look great. will give them a test run when i try out new holiday treats next thanksgiving.
When I was in junior high school our home ec class baked a massive amount of plain holiday sugar cookies using shortening. It was inexpensive and kept the baking project within budget. We were all asked to bring sprinkles to adorn the cookies because the sprinkles then were cost prohibitive. There were not that many choices for sprinkles, mostly green, red, rainbow and chocolate shot
BITD, but we made a bunch of pretty nice looking (and tasty) sugar cookies that went to the ‘behind the scenes staff’ and the postal delivery person.
Typical LCBO! SAQ in Quebec has lots, if you know anyone who can pick some up for you.
Today I made four more 6-inch panfortes, which includes the giveaways. Eight fruit cakes are now fully cured. I have 20+ small bottles of homemade fruit liquor labeled and ready to deliver. I’m done with giftables!
Still to be made this holiday season for general indulgence: chocolate chip scones, shortbread, biscotti, cinnamon star bread, and, if we feel we need yet more sugar, an Italian coffee cake.
Wow @MunchkinRedux ! Those all look and sound magnificent!
Do you have any current vacancies in your friends circle and are you accepting applications? I am sure I have some qualifications that will fit!
So far, no one runs the other way when they see those fruitcakes coming. I use top-shelf liquor, as an incentive. 
