Boozy Cherries

I've been enjoying moonshine cherries lately - I just put a couple in some cranberry juice for an easy "not-a-cocktail cocktail" and it makes me feel like I'm having a drink but really the alcohol content is pretty low (uh, unless you have a big ol' glass full of them! Geesh, don't pig out on drunken cherries and then drive the car or anything like that!!). Anyway, I ran out but my local grocery store doesn't carry them so I googled a recipe while in the store to see how hard they'd be to make - there are tons of recipes online but they were way more work than I wanted to do...since I've always called them "moonshine cherries" I thought I'd just buy some moonshine to soak some cherries in. Figures the store didn't have moonshine either. Hmmm...I was not giving up on making drunken cherries!

So next I googled "moonshine" - not so I could somehow build a still and make my own LOL but to figure out if there's an easy substitute...I read that moonshine is either defined as clear, unaged whiskey, or any kind of alcohol (usually whisky or rum) that is made in secret to avoid high taxes or outright bans on alcoholic drinks. I have a bottle of rum in the cupboard that is rarely used (not made in secret but whatever, by this point people were wondering why I was standing in the booze aisle on my phone for so long) so I decided to make my boozy cherries with that.

That was a long intro for a super short, super simple 'recipe': I literally poured rum over drained maraschino cherries in a glass jar and put them in the fridge to marinate for a day or two. I'm sure the longer they set the stronger they'll get. We'll see how long it takes me to get to the bottom of the jar and if they get wickedly stronger!

Oh, and I saved the drained cherry juice so when the cherries are gone I can mix the cherry rum with the leftover cherry juice for a different (and pretty pink...and stronger) cocktail.