Day 59.1: Lake & Palmer Got Left Out, Too.



Looks and tastes like cherries

Today we have some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that we will not be reviewing today’s scheduled drink, the Emerson.  Had we been reviewing the Emerson, we would have mentioned that it is a combination of gin, sweet vermouth, lime juice, and maraschino liqueur.   We planned on using Heering's Cherry Liqueur as our maraschino liqueur. After yesterday’s debacle, I began to wonder if that was going to be the right ingredient for the job.  I did a little research and discovered that it was not;  maraschino liqueur and cherry liqueur are not the same thing. Why would they be? After all maraschino is "bittersweet, clear liqueur flavored with Marasca cherries." How stupid for us to assume that cherry liqueur would be the same as cherry liqueur.



Cherry something

The good news is that the Heering web site says that their liqueur is the “original ‘Cherry Brandy’”. Cherry brandy is exactly what we needed yesterday to properly make the Cherry Sling.  So for the first time in TBIAW history we are going to re-test a drink. Today we have the Cherry Sling with “cherry brandy” instead of the incorrect ingredient we used yesterday, cherry brandy.

Even though we are excited to correct our mistake, we are still a little miffed about these product labels.  We can possibly blame ourselves for not knowing that maraschino liqueur and cherry liqueur are not the same thing.  On the other hand I’m not sure how we could have known that something with “The Original Cherry Liqueur” on the label is actually “cherry brandy” and something that says “brandy distilled only from a mash of pure Oregon and Washington cherries” isn’t cherry brandy.  In other news, we also learned that up is now down and The Time is not the worst song in recent memory. 
 

Queen Margrethe is the Queen of Denmark





Copenhagen, Denmark.  It is in Denmark.



That isn’t the end of the problems with the Heering liqueur label, though.  Clearly the bottle wants to give the impression of being Danish. On the label is a seal from Margrethe, the Queen of Denmark.  It also says “Peter F. Heering Copenhagen” and “Peter F. Heering Denmark”.  They really aren't being too subtle. I'm surprised it doesn't come in a Viking helmet made of Lego.  Now let’s take a peek at the back of the bottle:

Product of Sweden, eh?   Once again, TBIAW reveals a member of the global New Wold Order conspiracy.  I have to say I wasn't as shocked as I was two months ago when we discovered that “Italian” Galliano is made in Holland.  If Finlandia Vodka turns out to made in Poland I don’t know who I'll turn to.

As far as the drink itself, the "cherry brandy" made a huge difference compared to the cherry brandy.  We tried it straight first, as is our custom with new spirits.  It was fairly viscous with a sweet cherry taste.  Like many liqueurs, it had a strong similarity to cough medicine.  In the Cherry Sling that sweet thinkness really balanced out the lemon juice nicely and turned what was something horrible into something quite nice.  Well, I thought it was nice, Mrs. Bottle thought it still sucked.

Overall Rating for the Cherry Sling

Taste: 3 – I thought it was a 4, but Mrs. Bottle didn’t like it at all

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 –  16% alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Cherry-Flavored Brandy

1 oz Lemon Juice

Day 59: Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch Cherry Bombed

 

Doesn't even look cherry

The Cherry Sling* is supposed to be made with cherry-flavored brandy and lemon juice. Instead of cherry-flavored brandy we used Kirsch, which is brandy distilled from cherries.  We have a great book called The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, Beer, Spirits, and Liqueur and it says “confusingly, Kirsch is not related to cherry brandy.”  Yes, that is confusing that a product that is brandy distilled from cherries is not cherry brandy.  I am already easily confused, so I don’t need foodstuffs out there trying to intentionally trip me up.  At least we aren’t the only ones confused by it.

It turns out that using Kirsch instead of cherry-flavored brandy was a big mistake. Kirsch is very strong and doesn’t really have much cherry flavor (if any).  Cherry-flavored brandy is a super-sweet liqueur that has strong cherry flavor.  *Because of that, the drink we made wasn’t really a Cherry Sling but something much worse.  It really was truly horrible.  The drink was 1/3 lemon juice with no sweet elements at all to balance it.  The two ounces of 80-proof Kirsch only added some burn.  I am down with sweet burning, but sour burning is no fun.

No idea why we thought this was cherry brandy

This is actually the second time we used Kirsch in a drink that probably was supposed to use the other stuff.  In that case it worked out, but it might have been better if we had used the cherry brandy instead. This is an embarrassing mistake for TBIAW but I can’t promise we won’t make similar ones in the future.  Despite our outward appearance, we are only human. I don’t really have much else to say other than to look out for these trick foods.  It turns out that spotted dick isn’t something you always have to avoid.

Overall Rating for the Cherry Sling*

Taste: 1

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: -1 due to confusing ingredients

Drinks Until Blackout: 5 – 27% Alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Cherry-flavored Brandy

1 oz Lemon Juice