Cherry and Tsikoudia Spoon Sweet

This dessert was a wonderful taste of summer…tart, juicy cherries in a lightly spiced, flavourful syrup.

My version started with frozen sour cherries. Instead of tsikoudia, I used what I had on hand: sljivovica, a rather potent Croatian plum brandy. I cooked the brandy with the juices drained from the defrosted fruit, ¼ cup of sugar (the cherries had been frozen with sugar and the brandy was slightly sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar considerably), lemon juice and allspice berries as per the recipe directions. I can’t speak for the combination of tsikoudia and cherry but the plum brandy married very well with it. The syrup wasn’t overly sweet and was delicious with the tart fruit.

We enjoyed these cherries as is and with this mastic ice cream.