when life gives you cherry pits….

Half a glass of the cherry stone wine, a healthy slurp of prosecco, ice and orange slices. Delish!  This is way nicer than Sangria.

I’ve read John McEnroe’s autobiography “Serious” and in it he details the simple pleasure of chopping up breakfast fruit for his kids. I like to think he would welcome the simple frugality of this seasonal wine cooler and pour it over fresh fruit and sup it in the commentary box and shout out instead “This is the pits”…in a good way. Because if JM can mellow there is hope for all of us.  When temperatures head towards 40C its time to drink sensibly ie things with prosecco and a lot of ice and soda in.  This clever cooler has a tangy astringency because of the cherry leaves that you macerate in the wine mix.  Here is how this came into being…

Firstly there was a lot of sour cherry jam making going on…

which meant a surfeit of cherry stones…or pits if you is American. That bothered me. I don’t like throwing food away.  Then the ladies told me about Romanian pickles flavoured with cherry leaves. Then I thought about how the stones of apricots and cherries left in liqueurs and jams permeate them with soft mellow flavours. And so this little concoction was born.

Here is how to make your own version…but follow your instincts and what you have in your spice cupboard to personalise your own summer wine cooler.

Gadgets & Gizmos

A big jar. A dose of patience – about a week. uffff

Ingredients

3 litres of quite dodgy red wine. Those semi sweet bottles that you were given as a gift and cant bring yourself to throw away are just perfect.

A slug of vodka

a couple of spoonfuls of sugar unless using the really very dodgy wine as above

quite a few red peppercorns

a big handful of cherry stones/ pits

quite a few cherry leaves (washed)

How To

Mix all ingredients together and leave for a week

Drink within the next 2-4 weeks, with a lot of ice and a slice or two of orange.