Black cherry

Prunus serotina · Stone fruit

40 pairings

The black cherry (Prunus serotina), also called wild black cherry or rum cherry, is a large native North American tree that bears small, intensely aromatic dark cherries in long drooping clusters. Too bitter and astringent to enjoy by the handful, its fruit is the source of the deep, almond-tinged "black cherry" flavour behind sodas, cordials, liqueurs, jellies and pies — a flavour quite distinct from the sweet and sour orchard cherries of Europe.

Picking a good onedrag

Still red on the stalkShrivelled, weeping

Full blackEven glossy purple-black on a green stalk, firm to the finger. The buying window: it holds a good while cold and carries the flavour.Buy it

ColourPurple-black to the stem end, glossy, skin tight

ClusterParts cleanly, pedicel green and pliable

FleshFirm; the thin flesh springs back

SmellClean, faintly sweet held close

What to look for, from still red on the stalk to shrivelled, weeping.

What one gives you

80%

Usable yield

800 g a kilo, stones out

Keeping ittap a band

A domestic fridge holds it about 5× longer than the counter.

Humidity

95%+

Keep them lidded or bagged. The skin carries a poor cuticle, so bare in a dry fridge they shrivel and the stems brown within days.

Airflow

Still air, kept covered

Pack them dry and don't wash until you use them: standing surface moisture splits skins this thin, and rot follows the split.

Makes almost none, but answers to it

Non-climacteric, so it gains no colour or sugar off the tree and ripens nothing. But it answers to other fruit's ethylene with faster softening and browning stems.

Preparing