Summer cocktail: cherry bourbon fizz
Our first vagabond week took place in Eugene at Brett’s parents house, enjoying steamy hot Oregon summer days and cloudy, chilly, misty Oregon summer days (oh, Oregon). We rode our bikes along the river and ran on actual trails and had lunch with friends, and breakfast with friends, and (cheap, amazing) beers with friends. We drank Oregon pinot. We went to the Fair. We moved and unpacked and organized all of our earthly belongings, sorting them into “see you next year” and “mobile lifestyle” (aka living out of a car for three months) piles. Then we made that second pile smaller, and smaller, and smaller. We promptly reopened almost every box looking for the camera tripod, which eventually turned up in the backseat of the car. It’s going to be a long year of searching for and moving around our belongings.
And we ate cherries. Cherries, and cherries, and cherries.
Our first evening in Eugene, my in-laws went cherry picking and returned with a particularly fruitful harvest of 35 pounds of ripe, still sun-warmed Bing cherries. (Fruitful. Heh.) I can work my way through a 10 pound bag of oranges in the Southern California wintertime, and I can use up limes like a champion. But Oregon summertime means berries and cherries, and I’ve gotten overwhelmed with all of the things I want to do with them while I have them around.
Really, we mostly ate them straight (and still are – I know for a fact that my father-in-law has a bag of them in his truck at this very moment). Once I actually ate so many while I was pondering what to bake with them that I ended up too full to do anything else. But I also layered them into a chocolate icebox cake and smooshed a few into this slightly fizzy, entirely summery, bright red cocktail. Cherries and bourbon are a pretty natural combination, and the citrus juice and bit of fizz added at the end make it far more light and summery than its Manhattan kin. I drank mine as I rolled out and cut a batch of gnocchi dough for dinner on one of those cooler, cloudier Oregon summer evenings, and thought about which bar tools I might be able to fit into the car. (The “mobile culinary center” pile is growing by the minute.) I’m pretty sure we had cherries for dessert that night, too, and I’m looking forward to more when we get back next week.
Cherry bourbon fizz
Makes 1, but easily scalable
- 4 ripe, juicy cherries (Bings are great, but others work too)
- 1-2 tsp. granulated sugar (can alter for sweetness)
- 1 1/2 ounces bourbon or rye (I often favor Maker’s Mark for cocktails – and for everything else – but we work with what we’ve got, these days)
- 1/2 ounce lime juice (lemon works, too)
- Splash of soda
– Muddle 3 of the cherries and the sugar in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
– Fill the shaker halfway with ice. Add the bourbon and lime juice, and shake.
– Strain into a cocktail glass with a few cubes of ice. Add the splash of soda and stir gently. Drop in the last cherry as a garnish, and serve.
The pictures of the cherries and the sunlight were the essence of summer. Yummmm!
Wow! Those photos are awesome. I can almost taste the cherries! hmmm.
Wow what I would do for one of those right now!!’
Looks delicious. Wish it was mine:)
it all sounds (and looks!) so tasty. I could easily eat cherries until I was ill… recover and start again!
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Um…WOW! I love anything with a “fizz.” And bourbon. And cherries.
Safe to say I might just love this…
🙂
the beautiful pictures alone sell the drink, fantastic combination, will try it tonight for shure.
Thanks for sharing
sorry, not shure…sure lol
thanks and congrats on the FP!
Yum! Not a fan of bourbon, but I might become one from this. Would love to try it with lemon-lime soda as well.
That looks very, very good.
Looks like I need to pick up some cherries at the store tonight.
This is a great blog and That cherry bourbon fizz works for me.
Reblogged this on finnegan2749.
Looks absolutely delightful! Can’t wait to try it. Thanks!
This looks amazing – thanks for sharing!!
What a gorgeous colourful drink – looks so summery 🙂
Nice article
I think I’ll try it. It’s cherry season here in Utah too, but it’s almost over.
I’m going to make that this very evening, thanks!
This is so happening when I get home from work!!! Lovely blog 🙂
Wow! This looks great! A must try! and right before the weekend too….. 🙂
Summer cherry cocktail–I love it! Time to lay back, hit the deck, and find myself under bright skies with a drink in hand lol.
Excellent. This will work fine for the weekend. Thank you!
What a sublime looking drink illustrated with beautiful photos. I think I’ll be visiting my local grocers and raiding them of cherries!
Do want! Looks so good!
Congratulations on freshly pressed.
very tasty,
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Hold the phone, CHOCOLATE CHERRY ICEBOX CAKE?
Recipe. Now.
Yum! Sounds great!
Reblogged this on Makais Blog and commented:
my mouth is watering
This looks so delicious and refreshing! Thanks for sharing!
-Aleece
http://recipesfullofdeliciousness.wordpress.com/
This recipe sounds delicious! And the pictures looked so refreshing, will definitely try this cocktail!
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Trying this!!
It seems to be quite different and so refreshing, I’ll definitely get some fresh cherries for that. Going to try soon.
wonderful, think I will try this!
Really amazing photos! Loved them! Congrats on being Freshly Pressed!
I so want one right now, looks sooo delicious!
My son keeps taking my cherries to smash them and mix them into water to make cherry juice. I think I have a good way to “redirect” him. congrats on being featured!
Looks truly refreshing! I’d probably have eaten them as is and suffered the consequences later… It’d definitely be worth it! :p
Bourbon Cherry Fizz was awesome! Made some of them yesterday.
So glad you liked it!
whoa, i randomly concocted something very similar two nights ago & realized that the bourbon cherry combo deserved further investigation…& now it will! we had done bourbon, fresh cherries muddled with fresh mint, a tiny bit of agave syrup & a mountain of ice but fizz is totally what we were missing — thank you!
Fresh mint sounds like an awesome addition … will have to try that next time!
yummy…. looks so delicious…
I’ve always turned to professionals for drinks like this. I thought I could only enjoy them from a frozen cocktail machine hire perth. Now I can try making my own! Thanks for the recipe, it looks delicious.