Those little black cherries that come in your Old Fashioned or Manhattan while at an upscale bar are likely from a company from Italy called Luxardo. Their cherries and maraschino liqueur are known worldwide for amping up a standard cocktail. And in case you are wondering, the correct pronunciation is Mara-SKI-no because it’s Italian (but go ahead and call them by their colloquial pronunciation Mara-SHE-no).

Their Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur is what the company first made. it’s not like other cherry liqueurs, such as Cherry Heering or the sour cherry schnapps that you’ll find from Mr Stacks. It has a crystal clear color with a thick, viscous texture from the extra sugar added to it. While the taste is reminiscent of cherry, a prominent nuttiness leads the pack with a floral aftertaste. After all, it’s not made just from the cherries.

The maraschino liqueur takes the personality of the whole cherry tree. The process includes making a stew from the cherries, leaves, branches, and other random bits, which soak for up to three years. The solids are then separated and used as compost, and the liquid is then distilled through copper pot stills. It’s then aged in ash-wood vats, before being sweetened and proofed down with local water, before bottled. Today, the distillery can make 400,000 bottles of the maraschino liqueur each year.

The History of Luxardo

The Luxardo Company actually didn’t begin in Italy. It was founded in Zara (present-day Zadar). Zadar is nestled on the western side of Croatia, in an area known for its rugged mountains and scenic coastlines called Dalmatia. The area has a mild clientele with dry summers, yet abundant in rain during its autumn and winter seasons. It’s the perfect climate for marasca cherries

In 1817, Girolamo Luxardo was sent by the Republic of Venice to be the consular representative for the Kingdom of Sardinia by moving to Zara. His wife, Maria Canevari, came along with him. She became obsessed with a liqueur that was new to both of them but was popular in the region: Rosario Maraschino. It was a liqueur that had been invented by local monasteries in the medieval ages. It was a blend of marasca cherry distillate, sugar, and rose infusion.

Maria’s version gained attention. She had experience making limoncellos and other cordials back home in Italy, and her knowledge of home distilling paid off. Her husband saw the money they could make in this very lucrative business and they decided to open up a distillery in 1821. However, they weren’t the only players in the market; two men were already successfully selling a similar product in the market.

The first modern, commercialized version was produced in 1730 by Giuseppe Carceniga. He is also credited with the iconic straw protection around the bottle, originally there to protect the fragile Murano glass, as early as 1766. But his commercial products never went far.

Francesco Drioli started a distillery in 1759, after spending his earlier life as a merchant. He saw the value this liquor could have on the international market, so he dedicated 10 years to mastering the art of distilling it. With the connections he made as a merchant, he was able to sell the maraschino liqueur internationally.

Within a few years, their popularity had burst. The whole family was working for the distillery and they were distributing far and wide. The Emperor of Austria had even given it a special acknowledgment. In Zara and the surrounding areas, people drank it as a digestive after a meal, but it was beginning to pick up steam as an ingredient in mixed drinks.

Maraschino Goes Global

The first recording of it in a mixed drink was in a punch favored by the Prince Regent George IV of England in 1817. This punch, much like the Prince himself, is extravagant.

It wasn’t just Europe that was making notice of maraschino liqueur. American bartenders of the 1860s would add a dash of it to be used as a cocktail ‘seasoning’ to enhance the flavors of a mixed drink’s main ingredients. This is evident in the Martinez cocktail. It lives in the martini family and has claims of being a precursor to the modern-day gin martini.

An increased demand was coming to the Luxardo distillery. They were rolling out new products, such as their now famous Maraschino Cherries in 1905. They sold their pitted marasca cherries in a syrup of cherry juice, sugar, and liqueur, another common item in Dalmatia. Third generation Luxardo’s, Michelangelo and Nicolo I, built a new large and modern distillery in Zara.

Their increased capacity meant more people could get their hands on the liquor. New Cuban recipes of the 1920s and 1930s featured maraschino liqueur, such as the Mary Pickford and the Daiquiri No. 4 (now known as the Hemingway Daiquiri).

The Effects of World War II

The peace didn’t last as the world entered another world war. The Allies bombed the city, which in part destroyed part of the Luxardo distillery. After the war ended in 1944, Yugoslav communist revolutionary, Josip Broz Tito, occupied the city when the German troops withdrew. Key members of the Luxardo family were killed. Pietro was kidnapped and never heard of again, and Nicoló II and his wife Bianca were drowned. Many Italians fled the area, to Australia, Canada, and the United States; the surviving members of the Luxardo family hid, too.

Zadar had successfully survived World War I, even flourishing now that the city was under the control of the Kingdom of Italy.

Giorgio was the last living brother of his generation and knew he had to leave. He traveled stealthily by rowboat under the cover of night to Trieste, Italy; a trip that is more than 130 miles in total. His goal once he reached Italy was to continue his family’s legacy. To do that, he needed to restart the distillery. He managed to maintain contact with their master distiller, who had the forethought to bring their recipe book. Giorgi was focused on finding the perfect place to rebuild his family and distillery.

He eventually settled in the small community of Torreglia. It’s 30 miles west of Venice, so it wouldn’t be a target for any future bombings or military attacks. It’s an area known for its hot springs, which provided plenty of water for the distillery and managed to have the same pH balance for use in their products. One major thing was still missing: the marasca cherry.

His family had been cultivating a specific strain of the cherries for generations and knew it was the key. He had a distant memory of a professor from the University of Florence who had visited the orchards in Zara years before they were destroyed. He hunted down the professor and found that the university had not only retained the sapling, but they had maintained it. He took the sapling and went to regrow his family’s legacy.

It wasn’t going to be quick to get back up to speed. It took 5 years for the cherry trees to bear enough fruit to use in their maraschino liqueur, so he hunted through this family’s recipe book to make anything and everything they could make without cherries. This includes triple sec and gin, which they also make today.

Changing Tastes

Once they started making their maraschino liqueur, they continued steadily through the next decades. They realized that the tastes of the world post-WWII were different. Maraschino liqueur didn’t see a major uptick until 2003 when bartender Murray Stenson included it on the menu of the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle. Originally, the drink was a pre-prohibition cocktail from 1916 from the Detroit Athletic Club.

That doesn’t mean that Luxardo was unknown during this time. Their cherries grew in popularity and today are the gold standard at cocktail standards. However, Luxardo was never the only name in the game. Before prohibition, Luxardo cherries were reserved for the most wealthy. Prohibition made it more difficult to find maraschino-style cherries as some manufacturers preserved their cherries in alcohol.

Particularly, cherry growers in Oregon, known for the Queen Anne variety, were selling neon red preserved cherries with food colorings and flavor additives. Some used alcohol for preservation, and some used other obscure ingredients that didn’t result in a favorable flavor or consistency. Ernest Wiegand, a professor at Oregon State University began looking at new alternative ingredients in 1925. After six years of research, he found that using calcium salts in the brine was an effective method of preservation

Another major issue stood in the face of American cherry growers. The USDA did not allow any American-grown cherry to be labeled as maraschino cherries, unlike the luxury brands from Croatia and Italy. Instead, they had to be labeled “Imitation Maraschino Cherries”. In 1940, the cherry growers successfully lobbied for the change of definition from “marasca cherries preserved in maraschino” to “cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and packed in a sugar syrup flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor.”

We now live in a time where there are tens, if not hundreds, of maraschino cherries on the market. These are the most common varieties of cherries:

• Michigan Grown Cherries: Traverse City Whiskey Co., Peninsula Premium, Filthy Red
• Pacific Northwest Cherries: Jacky Rudy, Tillen Farms (including some preserved in bourbon or rum)
• Amarena Cherries: Toschi, Fabri, Nappi, Tempus Fugit, and Filthy Black
• Marasca Cherries: Maraska, Hotel Starlino, and, of course, Luxardo

How much does the variety matter? That all depends, but my experience is that it doesn’t matter too much. Amarena cherries are slightly bigger than Marasca cherries, and anything grown in the US can be a few different varieties. In my experience, the syrup or brine is what matters.

Luxardo’s are the gold standard for the syrup that the cherries soak in. It’s rich, velvety, and has depth. Hotel Starlino, for example, had a similar texture to the Luxardo cherries but had a less flavorful syrup. The generic neon red maraschino cherries (I personally get the Favorite Day house brand from Target) have a very different brine from any of Tillen Farms’ offerings. The Tillen Farms are made with better ingredients (read: organic), but I like the taste of the artificially flavored ones more because of a childhood nostalgia. 

In my video, I did a live side-by-side tasting of 5 different cherries: Favorite Day Neon Red Maraschino Cherries, Tillen Farms Bada Bing Cherries, Filthy Black Cherries, Tempus Fugit Cocktail Cherries, Hotel Starlino Maraschino Cherries, and Luxardo Maraschino Cherries. You can watch the video for detailed tasting notes, but in summary, my favorites were the Luxardo and FIlthy Black Cherries. They had a good depth of flavor, were rich in texture, and had a flavor profile that would accent cocktails well. The Tempus Fugit cherries were the most interesting to me as they are made in the 19th-century style. They contain Kirsch (cherry distilled alcohol) for a 12% ABV, which is unique from most stuff on the market. Tillen Farms had two versions (Rum and Bourbon) of Bada Bing Cherries that have alcohol in the brine, but it’s unclear from online listings if it has ABV/proof for it.

I am curious about what cocktail cherries you like. Feel free to share your favorites below.