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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. Anyone who's ever had an ice cream

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Speaker 1: Sunday Manhattan cocktail, or even an old fashioned fruit cup

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Speaker 1: is familiar with the ubiquitous candy red Maraschino cherry. It

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Speaker 1: may not seem to have much of a relationship to

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Speaker 1: a real cherry, but make no mistake. Maraschinos start off

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Speaker 1: as cherries on trees in the US. Sweet varieties like

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Speaker 1: the Royal Anne or Queen Anne from the Pacific Northwest

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Speaker 1: are used, but originally the cherries of choice or sour

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Speaker 1: Morasca cherries, a type that grows in coastal Croatia. In

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Speaker 1: the early to mid eighteen hundreds, Morasca cherry farmers looking

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Speaker 1: to preserve their harvest developed a method that involved first

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Speaker 1: brining the cherries in salty seawater, then rinsing all the

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Speaker 1: brine away and jarring them in cherry liqueur. The liqueur

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Speaker 1: was made from whole Morasca cherries, pits, stems, and all,

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Speaker 1: which gave it nutty, bitter flavors in addition to the

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Speaker 1: bright fruit. The Italian name for this liqueur was marishino

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Speaker 1: so cherries preserved this way came to be called Maraschino cherries.

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Speaker 1: These cherries were very popular in cocktails and on desserts

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Speaker 1: and salads, but they were also an expensive luxury, so

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Speaker 1: companies started to make knockoffs using dyes and sugar. Food

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Speaker 1: scientists worked on different ways to preserve cherries more cheaply,

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Speaker 1: and on ways to preserve the firm texture of a

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Speaker 1: fresh cherry. A one's jarred with alcohol or lots of

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Speaker 1: sugar tend to go soft and sort of wrinkly. When

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Speaker 1: prohibition hit the United States in the early nineteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: and Maraschino liqueur was banned, a scientist out of Oregon

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Speaker 1: State University debuted a new process that keeps cherries almost

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Speaker 1: crisp in the jar with a few tweaks. It's the

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Speaker 1: process still used today. Of first, the harvested fruits are

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Speaker 1: soaked in two brine solutions instead of the traditional seawater.

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Speaker 1: The first brine is made with a mix of sodium metabisulfite,

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Speaker 1: citric acid, and calcium chloride, and then the second with

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Speaker 1: sodium chlorite and acidic acid. The cherries are soaked for

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Speaker 1: four to six weeks. This effectively erases their original flavor

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Speaker 1: in color. The cherries are then pitted and all of

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Speaker 1: the brine is washed out. Don't worry, none of it

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Speaker 1: remains in the final product, though it's still nasty stuff,

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Speaker 1: and disposing of it is apparently a huge environmental and

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Speaker 1: economic problem in the industry. At any rate, this process

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Speaker 1: leaves you with snowy white, flavorless, sugarless cherries, so you've

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Speaker 1: got a blank canvas. And next, the cherries are soaked

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Speaker 1: in a solution made up of sugar, syrup, food coloring,

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Speaker 1: and almond extract for another month or so. Cherries and

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Speaker 1: almonds are pretty closely related and both contain a flavor

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Speaker 1: compound called benzaldehyde. Almonds just contain more of it, which

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Speaker 1: is by almond extract is used as cherry flavoring. Finally,

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Speaker 1: the transformed cherries are bottled along with the syrup. The

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Speaker 1: jars are sealed and pasteurized. This process allows the jars

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Speaker 1: to be shelf stable for years, though they should be

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Speaker 1: refrigerated after they're opened. The result is a bright, semi

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Speaker 1: translucent cherry with a sweet lollipop flavor. They're usually red,

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Speaker 1: but can be made in other colors and other flavors too.

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Speaker 1: If you're curious about the original style of Marischino cherry.

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Speaker 1: You can still find similar products on the market today.

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Speaker 1: The Luxardo brand has been in the business of preserving

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Speaker 1: cherries since nineteen oh five. The World War Two destroyed

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Speaker 1: their original distillery and took the lives of several family members. However,

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Speaker 1: one Giorgio Luxardo escaped to northern Italy with a recipe

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Speaker 1: and a Morascus sapling, and after World War Two he

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Speaker 1: was able to restart the business. Today, they use a

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Speaker 1: syrup of sweetened cherry juice to preserve their product instead

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Speaker 1: of liqueur. You can even make your own by preserving

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Speaker 1: sour cherries and Marischino lakor or cherry syrup. The result

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Speaker 1: is a cherry that's dark red in color, a little

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Speaker 1: softer or even gummy leg in texture, and sweet tart

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Speaker 1: in flavor. Today's episode is based on the article you

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Speaker 1: Don't Want to Know How Marischino Cherries are made on

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Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Leo Hoyt. The Brainstuff is

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and

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Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart

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