Cocktails with Cherry juice
Cherry juice is the unfermented liquid pressed from cherries, the fruit of Prunus trees, spanning both sweet and sour/tart types.
Taste profile
Pronounced cherry aroma over a deep red juice; the sweet type runs rounder and sweeter with soft acidity, while the sour/tart type is markedly sharp and less sweet.
How it's used
Contributes cherry aroma and a deep red colour as a fruit modifier, ranging from a small accent splash to a larger bulk measure that defines the drink. Much retail juice, especially the tart type, is sold as concentrate or 'from concentrate' — the concentrate is far more intense in acidity, colour and Brix, so it must be diluted or dosed sparingly.
Substitutes for Cherry juice
As a defining base or bulk measure it is essentially not substitutable, since the cherry aroma cannot be reproduced from an unrelated fruit; as a small colour or accent splash another red fruit juice works, adding sugar or syrup to match sweetness and, when replacing the tart type, a separate acid such as citrus to restore its sharpness.
Often confused with
Sweet cherry juice vs sour/tart cherry juice
Sweet cherry juice (Prunus avium) is higher in sugar and lower in acidity, giving a rounder, sweeter, less sharp juice; sour/tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus, e.g. Montmorency) is distinctly acidic and lower in sugar. In a drink these behave differently: one contributes mainly sweetness and colour, the other contributes acidity as well.
