Cherry Liqueur (Cherry Brandy Style)
A sweet cherry liqueur, sold in Britain under the misleading name cherry brandy. It is not a brandy, it is not dry, and it is not maraschino, and all three of those confusions cost somebody a drink most weeks.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Rich, sweet cherry aroma with hints of almond and baked fruit. The palate is full-bodied and rounded, delivering deep fruit sweetness balanced by mild bitterness and a soft, warming finish.
Recommended Brands
Budget Choice
Heering Cherry Liqueur: the bottle a Singapore Sling assumes
Premium Choice
Luxardo Sangue Morlacco: darker and less sweet, for a drink where the cherry leads
Storage & Handling
Store upright in a cool, dark place. Once opened, keep tightly sealed. Refrigeration is optional but extends freshness and preserves fruit character.
Shelf Life
Indefinite when unopened. Once opened: best within 12–18 months.
Usage
Poured at 15ml to 22.5ml as a modifier carrying sweetness, colour and stone fruit together. The Singapore Sling and the Blood & Sand are both built on it, and in each it is doing more structural work than the fruit suggests.
Not a Brandy
The traditional British name for this is cherry brandy, and it is a poor description. A brandy is a distilled spirit, and this is a liqueur: cherries macerated in alcohol, sweetened heavily, and bottled at around 24% rather than at spirit strength. Nothing about it behaves like a brandy in a drink. The name survives from a period when brandy was used loosely for any fruit spirit, and it persists on labels, so the only defence is to read the alcohol content and the sugar rather than the word.
Three Cherry Products
Cherry liqueur, maraschino and kirsch are routinely swapped and no two of them are alike. Kirsch is a clear, unaged, bone-dry eau-de-vie distilled from cherries, with no sugar at all. Maraschino is distilled from whole marasca cherries including the stones, which makes it clear, dry and almondy rather than fruity. Cherry liqueur is the only one of the three that is sweet, red and obviously of cherries. Substituting either of the others into a Singapore Sling produces something unrecognisable.
Cherry Heering and the Singapore Sling
Peter Heering began making his cherry liqueur in Copenhagen in the early nineteenth century and it became the reference bottle for the category, to the point that many recipes name it rather than the ingredient. The Singapore Sling is the drink that depends on it: the liqueur supplies colour, sweetness and the fruit that holds the gin, pineapple and Bénédictine together. The Blood & Sand uses it differently, against scotch and orange, where its sweetness is what makes an unlikely combination work.
Buying and Keeping
Read the label for real fruit rather than flavouring, since the cheap end of this category is sugar, alcohol and colouring and it tastes like cough syrup in a drink where the liqueur is a quarter of the volume. Alcohol content is the other signal, with the better bottles sitting around 24% rather than nearer 15%. Sugar and alcohol preserve it, so an opened bottle keeps for years, though the fruit brightness fades and an old bottle reads flatter and sweeter.
Pro Tip
If a cherry drink tastes medicinal, reduce quantity, not sweetness.
Top Tips
- Do not read brandy on the label as brandy. This is a sweet liqueur, usually around 24%.
- Cut the syrup when it goes in. It is sweet enough to count as part of the sugar in a build.
- Keep it apart from maraschino and kirsch. Three cherry products, three different jobs.
Possible Substitutions
- Cherry syrup (non-alcoholic, sweeter)
Production Method
Produced by macerating or fermenting cherries in neutral spirit or brandy, often followed by sweetening and resting to integrate fruit and alcohol.
History & Context
Cherry liqueurs have been used in European drinks since the 19th century, gaining global prominence through classics like the Singapore Sling. “Cherry brandy” became a catch-all term in early cocktail books for sweet cherry liqueurs rather than true brandy-based spirits.
Common Questions
Cherry liqueur versus maraschino?
Different products entirely. Maraschino is distilled from whole marasca cherries including the stones, so it is clear, dry and almond-scented. Cherry liqueur is macerated and heavily sweetened, so it is red, sweet and obviously fruity. Neither substitutes for the other.
What does it do in a Singapore Sling?
It supplies the colour, a good deal of the sweetness, and the fruit that holds gin, pineapple and Bénédictine together. Without it the drink is a pineapple gin sour with herbs in it, and the liqueur is what makes the combination cohere.
Does cherry work with whisky?
The Blood & Sand says yes, pairing it with scotch, sweet vermouth and orange juice in equal parts. It should not work and does, because the liqueur’s sweetness bridges the smoke and the citrus. It suits bourbon in a similar role, in smaller measures.
What should the label say?
Look for real cherries rather than flavouring, and for an alcohol content around 24% rather than nearer 15%. The word brandy on the label means nothing useful here, since this is a liqueur regardless of what the traditional British name suggests.