In some circles, maraschino cherries have a bad rap. The red-hot, heavily processed, somewhat-bastardized American maraschino (pronounced mara-skeeno) cocktail cherries are picked ripe and put into a brine of sulfur dioxide and calcium chloride designed to bleach the fruit. This results in a rubberized texture and is where the cherries stay for months before they soak up food coloring and sugar syrup. In addition, the vast majority of these types of cherries have injected molded plastic for a stem — which makes the party trick of tying it in a knot a little less savory.
A far cry from these mass-produced cherries, Seattle-based Orasella Maraschino Cherries was established on “the belief that the American history of the maraschino cherry deserves to be rewritten,” says co-founder Anne SanGiovanni. “We produce our cherries in the Italian tradition using [Italian] maraschino cherry liqueur as a primary flavoring agent and do this as naturally as possible using fresh, local ingredients.”
Orasella exclusively uses Washington State cherries, with the first harvests coming from SanGiovanni’s brother’s orchard in Yakima. What started as a hobby to preserve the large quantities of cherries she would receive from him each summer, SanGiovanni and her longtime friend, Heidi Stender, stumbled upon a traditional maraschino cherry recipe and gave it a shot. Over 250 pounds of cherries later, they finally had the recipe they wanted to take to market.
Orasella doesn’t use any chemical hardeners, preservatives or dyes, solely relying on the fruit to do the work. “There is no one else doing this at a craft level, hence, the reason we worked with local industrial artist, Chris McMullen, to create a custom pitting machine that fuels each batch,” she adds of the careful pitting process that leaves the fruit intact.
Craft cocktail bars have responded better than the duo could have imagined, selling out last year’s first commercial batch in weeks. From Rob Roy in Belltown to Barnacle in Ballard, Orasella’s limited-run cherries are finding their way into recipes around Seattle.
Foreign National on Capitol Hill riffs on a drink called Remember the Maine, a classic Manhattan variation that calls for cherry heering liqueur and is swapped out for straight Orasella cherry juice. “By substituting Orasella’s cherry juice for [the] heering, the emphasis is placed on the bold flavor of the cherries themselves, rather than using a liqueur that is generally a bit over-sweet,” says bartender Eli Hetrick. “We can also use more of the cherry juice this way, making it a bit more prominent in the cocktail.”
