Cherry Blossom

A delicate pink cocktail combining brandy with cherry liqueur and citrus for a floral, springlike sip.

The Cherry Blossom is a mid-century cocktail built on the floral-fruit combination of cognac with cherry brandy — an expression of the Continental European bar tradition of pairing distilled stone-fruit spirits in elaborate multi-ingredient preparations. Cherry brandy in its liqueur form — most commonly Heering Cherry Liqueur, produced by Peter Heering in Copenhagen since 1818 from a recipe using Danish Stevns cherries macerated in neutral spirit and aged in oak — was a standard component of high-end European bar service through the early and mid-20th century. Heering's product, originally called Cherry Heering when first sold by Peter Heering in the 1820s, became internationally famous through its appearance in the Singapore Sling and Blood and Sand and was distributed on transatlantic ocean liners, in grand hotel bars, and in European export markets. The Cherry Blossom's name evokes the Japanese sakura — cherry blossoms — which have been a cultural symbol of Japan's spring season for over a thousand years and became broadly recognizable to Western audiences through the Japanese cultural exchanges of the late 19th century and the Japanese-American cultural relationship of the 20th. Combining cognac's stone-fruit character with cherry liqueur, Cointreau, lemon juice, and grenadine produces a drink whose multiple fruit layers are united by the cherry's common aromatic thread.