maraschino cherries are an iconic cocktail garnish, usually encountered in heavily processed form, where the cherries have been steeped in a chemical brine, dyed with artificial colors, and bottled in a thick, artificially flavored sugar syrup. That process was developed by Oregon horticulturist Ernest Wiegand in 1925, ostensibly as a substitute for the traditional process, originating on the Croatian coast, whereby marasca cherries were brined in seawater and then bottled in maraschino liqueur. See maraschino.
More accurately, Wiegand’s imitation was a substitute for the French imitation of the Croatian process, which would have had two defects from his point of view: it didn’t use Oregon cherries, and it used alcohol (in 1925, Prohibition was the law of the land). The French process was pioneered by the Fils de Charles Teyssonneau company of Bordeaux, who took local bigarreau cherries, bleached, brined, and dyed them, and then packed them in an alcohol solution. Some were packed with their kernels to achieve a maraschino flavor; others used benzaldehyde, extracted from bitter almonds. These were available throughout the United States by 1888 and found their way into drinks almost immediately: in November 1889, an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat first described a “whiskey and cherry” cocktail with an “imported stoneless French cherry, preserved in French cordial,” and claimed it was “the greatest drink at present in St. Louis… . Everybody seems to have gone mad after this drink.”
In March 1891, a Kansas City Times article first prescribed adding a cherry to a Manhattan, and later the same month, the New York Herald described the fad actually reaching Manhattan. Popularity, along with tariffs, drove up the price, raising complaints from bar owners. Then the fad passed, and in November 1897, a widely syndicated article in the Herald claimed, “Cocktails no longer contain a cherry at the bottom of the glass… . Cherries are going out, along with other sweeteners in drinks.” Starting in 1904, concerns about toxic coal tar dyes further doomed the cherry.
Modern American Drinks (1895), by George Kappeler, was the first bartender’s guide to use maraschino cherries, optional in his Manhattan and Sweet Martini, although that same year, C. F. Lawlor’s The Mixicologist includes an “imported cherry” in its Martinez. Subsequent manuals up to Repeal rarely called for cherries in those drinks, even provisionally. The cocktail cherry’s revival occurred during Prohibition in “American bars” throughout Europe. Most 1920s-era European cocktail books made heavy use of cherries, which the authors considered a standard Manhattan ingredient. Impressionable Americans drinking abroad began to reconsider the cherry. Nonalcoholic maraschino cherries remained available in the United States throughout Prohibition, and after Repeal they resumed their place in American cocktails, their former unpopularity now forgotten. While the modern cocktail renaissance has brought back real maraschino cherries, such as the ones made by the Italian Luxardo company, the bright-red, plump, and celluloid-like Wiegand-process cherries remain ubiquitous.
“A Cherry in Your Cocktail.” Kansas City Times, March 15, 1891, 16.“Cocktails and Punches.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 17, 1889, 20.
“New Things in Tipples.” New York Herald, November 21, 1897, sec. 5, 8.
Rehak, Melanie. “Who Made That Cherry?” New York Times, September 19, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/magazine/who-made-that-maraschino-cherry.html (accessed March 24, 2021).
By: Doug Stailey