Luxardo, Amarena or Bright Red: Which Cocktail Cherries Are Worth It?

Luxardo and Amarena cherries are worth it if you want a garnish that tastes of fruit: both are dark Italian cherries in syrup, with no artificial dye. Luxardo candies marasca cherries for a firm bite. Amarena is softer and more sour-sweet. Bright red maraschinos are bleached, dyed and flavored with almond, and taste mostly of sugar.

Three kinds of cocktail cherry

Luxardo: the marasca cherry

Luxardo Original Maraschino Cherries are candied marasca cherries soaked in marasca cherry syrup, and the maker puts the jar at about 50% cherries and 50% syrup. Luxardo states that it uses no thickening agents and no preservatives, that the dark red color is all natural, and that its candying process gives the fruit an unusual crispness.

A retailer listing gives the ingredients as cherries, sugar, marasca cherry syrup, glucose, citric acid, natural coloring and maraschino flavor, and warns the jar may contain cherry pits. Luxardo lists the cherries as gluten free, GMO free, kosher certified and vegan friendly, and sells them in jars and in tins for bars.

Bars use them as a garnish, and Luxardo also suggests them over ice cream.

Luxardo and Amarena cocktail cherries

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Amarena: the softer, sour-sweet cherry

Amarena cherries are small, black sour cherries that grow wild around Bologna and Modena, and they are usually gently cooked and preserved in sugar syrup. Two Italian makers are easy to find.

Fabbri credits its Amarena to Rachele Fabbri, who semi-candied the cherries, and sells them in a white and blue jar first made as a thank-you for her recipe. The company dates from 1905. Sous Chef describes the cherries as soft and juicy, with a sourness that balances the sweet syrup.

Toschi was founded in 1945 in Vignola, near Modena, and became known for Amarena cherries in sweet syrup. Sous Chef lists them as free from artificial colors and flavorings, gluten free and suitable for vegans.

Dark cocktail cherry	Premium pickLuxardo Original Maraschino Cherries	Accessible alternativeToschi Amarena cherries in syrup
Cherry	Marasca, candied	Amarena sour black cherry
Syrup	Marasca cherry syrup, about 50% of the jar	Sweet syrup
Color	Natural; no thickeners or preservatives	No artificial colors or flavorings
Dietary	Gluten free, kosher, vegan friendly	Gluten free, vegan
Pack	Jars, plus tins for bars	Glass jar

Pay more if

you want a firm, crisp candied cherry that holds its shape on a pick.

Save if

you use cherries mostly over gelato and desserts, where a softer, sour-sweet fruit suits.

Bright red maraschinos: how they are made

The name once meant something else. Oregon State University explains that the first maraschino cherries were marasca cherries from the coast of present-day Croatia, preserved by pickling and then marinating in a liqueur made from the fruit. A 1912 US food ruling under the Food and Drugs Act of 1906 still reserved the name for marasca cherries preserved that way.

That changed in 1940. The FDA concluded that shoppers now understood maraschino cherries to mean cherries dyed red, impregnated with sugar and flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor, and it still treats that as the common name today.

The modern method came from Oregon. In the 1920s Ernest Wiegand, a food scientist at Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University, perfected a maraschino made from Oregon’s Royal Anne cherries, using calcium salts in the brine to firm the fruit and almond extract to suggest the taste of marasca pits. BAKERpedia describes today’s commercial process: pitted cherries are bleached in a brine with sodium metabisulfite and calcium chloride, then sweetened with syrup, colored and flavored with almond oil.

Which jar is worth it?

For a garnish you will eat, buy Luxardo or an Amarena. The difference over supermarket cherries buys real fruit flavor and natural color, and a jar lasts many drinks. Bright red maraschinos still have a place on a sundae, where color matters more than flavor.

Storing and serving cocktail cherries

Once a jar is open, Tasting Table advises moving the cherries to an airtight container in the fridge, keeping them in their syrup and using a clean utensil each time so nothing spoils it. Check the label for the best-by date on unopened jars.

The syrup is worth keeping too. A barspoon of Luxardo or Amarena syrup sweetens a zero-proof sour or a glass of soda water with a cherry note, and it can go over ice cream with the fruit.

A dark cherry suits a zero-proof sour in a chilled coupe: see our cocktail glasses guide for the glass, and the bar tools guide for a long spoon to fish cherries from the jar. The premium cocktail mixers guide covers grenadine and orgeat, and the home bar setup overview shows where garnishes fit in a full bar, alongside bigger pieces such as a kegerator.