Marasca cherry
Prunus cerasus var. marasca · Stone fruit
Top 10 pairings
The Marasca is the small, dark Dalmatian sour cherry behind maraschino liqueur and true candied cocktail cherries — a wild-type Prunus cerasus of the Adriatic coast, tiny and thin-fleshed, with a sharp, spicy tartness and a pronounced bitter-almond note from its crushed stones that is the whole point of the fruit. Almost none of the crop is eaten fresh; it is grown to be distilled and preserved.
Picking a good onedrag
Picked palePast it
Full colourBuy itIt's firm enough to keep a week in the fridge, sweet enough to eat by the handful.
ColourFull red, bright and glossy
StemGreen, pliable, firmly attached
FleshFirm and springy, heavy for size
SmellClean, faintly sweet up close
These cues are Cherry's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
92%
Edible part
8.2 g · pit and stem out
9 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A domestic fridge holds it about 5× longer than the counter.
95%+
Humidity
Still air, keep it bagged
Airflow