Brandied Cherries

Brandied Bing Cherries

Tom Douglas Tom’s Big Dinners

Makes about a cup

2/3 Cup sugar

1 Vanilla Bean, cut in half lengthwise

1 Pound Bing cherries, or other sweet cherries, stemmed & pitted, keeping the fruit whole. (Rainier’s don’t seem to work well with this recipe)

½ Cup Cognac or other good quality brandy

A step ahead: you can make the cherries a few weeks ahead and store them, covered and refrigerated. The flavor mellows and improves after a few days.

Combine the sugar and ½ cup water in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Use a paring knife to scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add both the seeds and the bean pod to the saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the cherries and ¼ cup of the Cognac and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain the cherries from the cooking liquid, reserving both. Put the cherries and the vanilla pod in a heat proof bowl and return the liquid to the saucepan. Bring the liquid to a boil until syrupy and reduced to about ½ cup syrup. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the syrup over the reserved cherries. Allow the brandied cherries to cool, stir in the remaining ½ cup Cognac. Remove and discard the vanilla bean pod before serving. These can be used in the best Manhattan you'll ever have!