Success: Another Cherry Preserves Season

Sunday, September 1, 2019

In July, cherries went on sale for $1.50/lb, which around here means CANNING. Time to stock-up on cherry preserves for the year. They make the best housewarming/thanks/birthday gift. And they're just delicious. This year I avoided the red wine and brandy because I just don't like them that much...and went for a cheap bottle of bourbon. That works so much nicer (for me, anyways). So I have 'manhattan cherries', some non-alcoholic maraschino cherries, and cherry preserves in rosemary honey syrup.

15lbs of cherries into ~19 pints of preserves.

Vanilla Bourbon Cherries

4.75pts Vanilla Bourbon Soaked Cherries: sheeats.ca. I used some organic tart cherry juice in the place of the water, to amp up the cherry-ness.

Chai-spiced Bourbon Cherries

6pts from sheeats.ca, but with a teaball full of mulling spices + cardamom steeped in the syrup instead of the vanilla. Some of the water was replaced with tart cherry juice. I always run out of syrup and end up scrambling to make more. Reminder to make more than enough syrup. The worst that happens is you have leftover for your sparkling water!

Cocktail Cherries

5.5pts Cocktail/Maraschino Cherries: Living Homegrown. Maraschino cherries, but without the liqueur, so really just cherries preserved in sugar syrup. I also used tart cherry juice instead of water for these jars. I have some bottles of black cherry juice for the future, and am interested in its impact on flavor.

I had a pint of these explode when I put them into the hot water bath. I suspect this was due to a temperature difference (i.e., letting the jars cool too much while filling them). Something to remember for next time!

Cherry Preserves in Rosemary Honey Syrup

2.5pts Cherries in Honey Rosemary Syrup: FoodInJars. I've made these before. They are fantastic. This time I remembered to keep the rosemary in a teaball, so no one has to consume rosemary leaves!