Cherry Syrup – Old Fashioned Recipe

cherry syrup
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Cherry Syrup

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Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

20

servings
Calories

80

kcal
Total time

15

minutes

Learn how to make an old-fashioned cherry syrup. This recipe makes a little over 3 cups (750 mLs) of syrup.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups 1.5 Tart Cherry Juice

  • 2 cups 2 Granulated Sugar

  • 1 tsp 1 Bitter Almond Extract

  • Optional Ingredients
  • 1/2 tsp 1/2 Citric Acid (Flavor Enhancer)

  • 3 g 3 Lecithin Powder (Foaming Agent)

Directions

  • Add cherry juice to a stovetop pot and bring to a light simmer. Add the sugar and stir till dissolved.
  • Remove from the heat and stir in the citric acid.
  • Once the syrup has cooled moisten the lecithin powder with an ounce of water. Once the lecithin is fully dissolved, stir in the lecithin and bitter almond extract.
  • Store in the refrigerator or freeze for storage.

Featured Video

Home Made Cherry Syrup

Home-made cherry syrup is miles better than anything sold in stores and does not require much effort. Making cherry syrup with sweet cherry juice is fine, but for the best results, use tart or sour cherry juice. These cherry juices have a fantastic flavor, and the sour taste is balanced well with the high amount of added sugar.

Making Fruit Syrups With Real Fruit Juices

It’s not always possible to make fruit syrup with actual fruit juice, but the ones made with real juice are much better. Many mass-produced syrups are simple syrups flavored with a combination of esters, essential oils, and extracts. Esters are acid and alcohol combinations whose byproducts taste like fruit to humans. For example, ethanol and butanoic acid bond into ethyl butanoate, which tastes like pineapples. Naturally occurring esters in beer production produce its characteristic fruit flavors. When esters are used to flavor foods, they are listed as artificial flavors. Flavors made from essential oils and extracts are listed as natural flavors. For example, those bright red, clear cherry syrups at stores are just simple syrup with bitter almond, cherry stone extract, and red food dye. No juice at all.

This isn’t a bad thing. Essential oils have a fantastic flavor and is the preferred method for making herb and spice flavored syrups; some prefer artificial ester flavors to real ones. I LOVE artificial grape flavor, which is methyl anthranilate. But these tend to be one-dimensional flavors, making them easy to recognize as unnatural. Real fruit juice has a complex flavor: water-soluble flavors, metals, salts, bitter flavors, acids, carbohydrates, etc. A syrup made with a combination of real fruit juice, essential oils, and extracts will have a rich, complex flavor that no average store-bought syrup can match. For the curious, cherry ester is Isobutyl acetate.

When To Add Citric Acid To A Syrup.

Adding a small amount of citric acid will significantly enhance the flavor of your fruit-based syrups and make their flavor pop even when diluted. Here is a quick explanation of balancing flavors.

Traditional flavor structure is broken into four groups (ignoring umami as it’s not applicable here). The four groups are salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. And it is the interplay of these four groups that create a flavor profile. Flavor profiles can be balanced or unbalanced. Being unbalanced is not a bad thing. It’s just a choice, like adding a salted rim to a margarita or sweet and sour sauce, but a balanced profile is usually the goal. Salty, sour, and sweet all counter each other in a flavor triangle, with bitter being the odd one out as only sweet balances it. Now back to adding acids to syrups.

In the case of cherry syrup, a little citric acid balances the sweetness and makes for a more noticeable cherry flavor. if the only flavor is sweet then it overwhelms the taste buds and inhibits your ability to taste the cherry. A little acid will cut through the sweetness and activate additional taste buds, resulting in a more complete tasting experience. granted the tart cherries are already sour but so much sugar is added and the syrup is reduced enough that a little additional citric acid helps.

When To Add A Foaming Agent To Syrups.

Realistically all syrups should have a foaming agent. There are many drinks that should be cold, still, and foamless, but that can be controlled by how the drink is mixed. It was typical for high-end sodas in the late 1800s to have a nice foam on top. Similar to high-end molecular gastronomy restaurants today, a nice soda fountain would ensure that some drinks had an air or foam on top as you sipped your drink. The foam provides both a creamy texture and olfactory stimulation. These were called foaming agents, and in the 1800s, soap bark or other extracts were added to syrups to provide foam when shaken and mixed with soda water. A popular one today in the United States is propylene glycol, and while it is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in the US, it is banned for consumption in the EU. Another modern alternative, and the one I use, is adding lecithin to my syrups. Lecithin is flavor neutral, a natural emulsifier that provides a nice foam, and is often taken as a health supplement. It is also the foaming agent many high-end restaurants use to make foams for food. So I’ll add 0.5% of the total syrups weight of lecithin powder to my syrups as a foaming agent.

Again many drinks contain syrup that should be foamless, like a mint julep, an old-fashioned sazerac, etc., but that can be controlled by stirring the drink instead of shaking it.

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Cherry Lime Soda – Recipe

Cherry Lime Soda
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Cherry Lime Soda

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

48

kcal
Total time

3

minutes

Make an old fashion cherry lime soda

Ingredients

  • 1.5 oz 1.5 Cherry Syrup

  • 1 oz 1 Lime Juice

  • 8 oz 8 Soda Water

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine syrup and juice in a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Pour the chilled and aerated syrup into a collins glass without a strainer.
  • Slowly pour the soda water down into the top of the drink. This will build both body and a foam head.

Featured Video

What Does Cherry Lime Soda Taste Like?

Cherry and Lime are two flavors that go very well together, and a cherry lime soda makes for a fantastic drink. Using a tart cherry syrup, like I provide a recipe for, gives a complex and deep cherry flavor that is enhanced by the tartness of lime juice.

How To Get A Nice Foam On Your Sodas.

It was typical for high-end sodas in the late 1800s to have a nice foam on top. Similar to high-end molecular gastronomy restaurants today, a nice soda fountain would ensure that some drinks had an air or foam on top as you sipped your drink. The foam provides both a creamy texture and olfactory stimulation. These were called foaming agents, and in the 1800s, soap bark or other extracts were added to syrups to provide foam when shaken and mixed with soda water. A popular one today in the United States is propylene glycol, and while it is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in the US, it is banned for consumption in the EU. Another modern alternative, and the one I use, is adding lecithin to my syrups. Lecithin is flavor neutral, a natural emulsifier that provides a nice foam, and is often taken as a health supplement. It is also the foaming agent many high-end restaurants use to make foams for food. So I’ll add 0.5% of the total syrups weight of lecithin powder to my syrups as a foaming agent. Check out my cherry syrup recipe for exactly how that is done.

If you want to learn more about this topic and make your drinks better, check out De Forest Saxe’s 1894 book “Saxe’s New Guide Hints to Soda Water Dispensers. Another book I highly recommend reading is Darcy S. O’Neil’s absolutely fascinating book Fix The Pumps, which covers the history and standard practices of early soda fountains.

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