Fresh cherries, chocolate mint leaves, lime, and torched cherry white rum team up in this refreshing cherry mojito recipe to usher in cherry season in style. Mojitos are always such a refreshing drink... and these just whisper summer. They'd scream summer but that wouldn't be very relaxing, would it?
It's cherry season right now! Enjoy them while you can, right? And there's no better way than in this easy cherry mojito recipe!
I love fresh fruit of all kinds -- it would honestly be hard for me to choose one kind. The availability of so much fresh produce is probably one of the best things about summer, too! So when I was contacted by Market Street and asked to make something with fresh cherries I knew that the hardest thing would be to choose what to make. Pies, cobblers, ice creams, jams, sauces - this fruit is so versatile it can be used in everything from an appetizer to a dessert. The one area I feel that cherries don't get much love is in cocktails. I plan on changing that.
Being from Texas I don't have a lot of experience with cherry trees, as you can imagine. They are a northern thing. Well, my parents were from Michigan and we visited there every summer. My mom's family was big, and pretty close, so we spent a couple of weeks moving from house to house to see everyone we could. Now, my aunts put up cans and cans of all kinds of things from raspberry jam to bread and butter pickles. Their basements looked like a Costco aisle to me. Jars of fruits, vegetables, and sauces reached up to the ceiling. I couldn't imagine anyone eating all of them.
One of my aunts canned cherries. I can remember my uncle and aunt sitting in their den watching television, each with a tub, a bowl, and a sharp knife. They'd pit those cherries in no time at all while watching their show and talking with my mother and I. The whole house smelled like fresh cherries, and I imagine that you could smell them clear out to the road. I was allowed to eat as many of the cherries as I wanted as long as they weren't the pitted ones!
This year I have a little herb garden and I am growing chocolate mint, along with several other herbs. It's funny but the chocolate mint really does taste like an Andes mint! I used the chocolate mint leaves in this cocktail and it was delicious but you can use regular mint and it will be fine. Just remember to plant some chocolate mint next spring!
You can add that fresh, sweet and tart cherry flavor to your summer cocktails a couple of ways. You can macerate the cherries in simple syrup and create a syrup out of them, you can blend them into frozen drinks, or you can muddle them. I am choosing to muddle the cherries in this cherry mojito recipe because it is a quick and easy way to do it.
To muddle fruit for cocktails you basically add the fruit and mint (or whatever) to the bottom of a heavy glass and smush it with a special bartenders tool called a muddler. Personally I don't have a muddler so I use my marble mortar and pestle... which works just fine. Just don't muddle cherries after you've made pesto, ok?
In other words, muddling is making a paste so that when you mix in the liquid ingredients it flavors them. If you have time go ahead and mix the rum and the muddled cherries an hour ahead of time to give it even more flavor -- but it's not necessary. It's good just the way it is.
📖 Recipe
Fresh Cherry Mojito Recipe
Print SaveIngredients
- 10 fresh cherries, pitted and cut into ¼ths
- 2 lime wedges
- ¼ cup fresh mint leaves, I used chocolate mint leaves.
- 2 tablespoons simple syrup, or more to taste
- 2 ounces Torched Cherry rum or white rum
- ¼ cup club soda, optional
- ½ cup ice cubes
- ½ cup crushed ice
- Additional mint and cherries for garnish
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Instructions
- Muddle the quartered and pitted cherries, lime wedges, mint leaves and simple syrup together.
- Add rum and let stand for 30 minutes, if possible.
- Add the ice cubes.
- Add the crushed ice to a glass.
- Stir in a few cherries and mint leaves.
- Shake the rum mixture and strain the entire mixture into the glass filled with crushed ice.
- Add ¼ cup club soda, if desired.
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Sabrina @ Dinner, then Dessert
You had me at cherry! Wow, I need this drink right now after the tornado of toys I just cleaned up after 🙂
Beverly Macey
Sounds delicious! Can’t wait to try it~ Beverly Macey
Marye Audet
🙂 thanks! Hope you love it as much as I do.
Healing Tomato
Love cherry mojito recipes. Your version is very simple, yet, delicious.
Des @ Life's Ambrosia
When I was picking out herbs for my garden this year, I almost bought a chocolate mint plant but then I wasn't sure how much I would use it so I opted for the regular mint instead. Kinda regretting it now that you say it tastes like an andes mint. Maybe I'll have to go back and get one 🙂
allie @ Through Her Looking Glass
This Cherry Mojito looks absolutely divine and so refreshing, Marye. I love fresh cherries. I was lucky enough to receive a cherry pitter as a birthday present a few years ago. I also had a lovely trip with girlfriends to Michigan and we visited Cherry Nation, a lovely restaurant and shopping where everything is made of cherries. (We did have cherry pie.)