You can stop paying for overpriced coffee syrups and make this easy cherry syrup for drinks, coffee, cocktails, soda, and more! All you need are 3 ingredients and less than 10 minutes to make a great cherry simple syrup. It’s perfect for making cherry-flavored drinks or even on pancakes.

Here’s how to make an easy cherry syrup for drinks at home!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s super simple and only requires 3 ingredients and less than 10 minutes.
• It’s cheaper than buying premade cherry syrup that’s loaded with sugar.
• The flavor is fresher, brighter, and better!
• Cherry is a great flavor to stock in your at-home coffee bar or cocktail bar!

What is Cherry Syrup?

Cherry syrup is cherry infused or flavored simple syrup, which has a base of sugar and water. It’s normally made with red cherries for their balanced sweet and tart flavor, which also gives it a bright red color.

Sometimes brands will use cherry extract or artificial flavoring, which gives a sickly sweet, medicinal flavor. The best flavor is definitely from using fresh cherries, which are floral, fruity, and juicy!

What Cherries to Use

I like using red Bing cherries, which are the classic cherries you’ll find at most grocery stores. They’re usually available year-round, have that classic sweet, tart, and slightly bitter flavor, and are super juicy. However, you can use other cherry varieties depending on what flavor you like. Like Rainier cherries have a yellow flesh but are super sweet and almost nectarine or peach-like in flavor.

I like using fresh cherries, but frozen cherries are also great, especially since the juice releases more easily thanks to the freezing process that breaks down cell walls. You can also use canned cherries, which are normally soaked in sugar water, so you might not even need to add any extra sugar. In a pinch, rehydrated dried cherries also work, but might have a fruit leather flavor.

How to Use Cherry Syrup

There are so many great drinks to make with cherry syrup. My favorites are a cherry vanilla latte, a cherry Earl Grey milk tea, and a cherry cream matcha latte. The cherry syrup makes it easy to flavor coffee, tea, and matcha, perfect for those who like to experiment with their caffeine fix.

However, this cherry syrup is also great in cocktails like a cherry sour, a margarita, or a Cherry Lime Rickey. It’s also perfect in Sprite or Coca-Cola. I’ve even used it on pancakes and waffles when I want something other than maple syrup, and on Greek yogurt.

Cherry Syrup Recipe: Ingredients

• 2 cups red cherries
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)

How to Make Cherry Syrup for Drinks

1. Pit Cherries. Wash and pit your cherries by slicing them in half and removing the pits with your fingers. You could also use a cherry pitter machine for convenience.
2. Mash Fruit. Mash the cherries using a potato masher or equivalent tool to release the juices more easily. This is what gives your syrup a more fruity flavor!
3. Cook Syrup. Add the cherries, sugar, and water to a pot, then cook on medium heat for 3 – 5 minutes. Stir from time to time to ensure even cooking, and simmer until it thickens slightly.
4. Cool and Bottle. Remove from heat and let the syrup cool slightly. Then, strain out the cherry pulp with a strainer and transfer the syrup into a bottle or jar and cool completely before storing in the fridge. It should last in the fridge up to 3 weeks!
5. Use and Enjoy! Use this syrup in coffee, matcha, cocktails, soda, and on breakfast foods!

How to Store Cherry Syrup

For homemade syrups, store them in a bottle or jar that has a lid that can make an airtight seal. This helps prevent exposure to air and bacteria that make syrups spoil faster. You can also store syrup in a bottle with a pour spout that has a small lid on top. If it doesn’t, I would remove the spout and reseal it with a lid to make it last longer.

How long does cherry syrup last? This homemade cherry syrup should last about 3 weeks, especially in the fridge. Sugar is a good preservative, but only at high concentrations. Since there’s moisture in the syrup, it won’t be as shelf-stable.

Using Leftover Pulp

Don’t throw the leftover cherry pulp away! It’s totally edible and delicious, especially after being cooked in a sugar syrup. I like to use it as a topping for Greek yogurt, ice cream, or pancakes. You can also enjoy it on toast as a chunky jam or as a sweetener for smoothies.

For candy, you can dry it for a chewy dried cherry snack or as a milkshake mix-in. The possibilities are endless, and it’s a hack for using all of the cherry!

Tips for the Best Cherry Syrup

• Add Vanilla: Vanilla tastes good with almost all fruits, and it adds a nice roundness to this syrup. Cherries can be tart sometimes, so the vanilla rounds out any sharp flavors and balances them out.
• Use Frozen Cherries: Frozen fruits usually have more juice in them since the freezing bursts cell walls and releases more liquid into the fruit. So when you cook them down, you’ll have more cherry juice and more flavor. Plus, they’re already pitted, so it’s more convenient to use!
• Adjust the Texture: If you like a thinner syrup, stop cooking the syrup earlier, just after the sugar dissolves. For a thicker syrup, cook the syrup longer, which further releases pectin and evaporates more water.

Other Cherry Syrup Methods

There are some other ways to make cherry syrup!

• Macerated Cherry Syrup: Intense fresh fruit flavor! Cut, pit, and mash cherries into a large bowl or jar, then add the same amount of sugar by volume. Toss the fruit and sugar together until all the fruit is coated, then leave overnight on the counter. The cherry juices will be pulled out from the fruit and mixed with the sugar.
• Blended Cherry Syrup: Blend cherries, a little bit of water, and sugar together until smooth. Strain out the cherry pulp, and you have an easy, fresh cherry syrup. This is not as flavorful as the macerated or cooked version, but adds a brighter flavor since it’s not cooked.
• Cooking Cherry Juice: Juice cherries or buy cherry juice, then simmer on medium heat until it thickens slightly or becomes half ot the original volume. This is such an easy hack, but often be much sweeter unless your juice has no added sugar in it.

FAQ’s

Is grenadine cherry syrup?

No, grenadine is a pomegranate syrup, not cherry, although they do look and taste similar. Grenadine is used for, most famously, Shirley Temples, which might be confused for being cherry flavored because of the maraschino cherry garnish.

What does cherry syrup taste like?

It tastes like a sweet red cherry, but in liquid form. It’s sweet, tart, and slightly bitter, sometimes with a hint of almond flavor. The taste is not quite identical to a fresh cherry, but also not as sweet as cherry jam. It’s somewhere in the middle!

How long is homemade cherry syrup good for?

Homemade syrups usually last me about a month in the fridge, and can even last longer depending on how much sugar is in them. If you have leftover syrup you won’t use, you can freeze it in a small tub or container and thaw it in the fridge before using. This prolongs the shelf life up to three months.

What can I make with cherry syrup?

Homemade cherry syrup is perfect for lattes, milkshakes, and breakfast foods like yogurt, pancakes, or French toast. It’s also great in cocktails, mocktails, sodas, flavored milk, and more.

How to know if homemade syrup has gone bad?

If your syrup has a weird color, anything floating in it, or a weird smell, that’s when you know it’s gone bad. Syrup should always be slightly clear and have nothing floating in it (unless you added pulp or other inclusions). Better safe than sorry!

Other Simple Syrup Recipes to Try

After you make this cherry simple syrup at home, you’re probably wondering what other syrups you can make! Well, here are some other syrup recipes you should try next:

• Cranberry Syrup
• Peach Syrup
• Blueberry Syrup
• Strawberry Syrup
• Simple Syrup