Cherry vishnick

I am in possession of black morello cherry vishnik. The cherries were picked and allowed to ferment into wine, with some yeast added. After several years in the basement, the wine was filtered and mixed with overproof alcohol, slowly. Each taste test allowed us to find the right wine and alcohol mixture. The result was bottled in sterilized bottles and corked; after 10 years we had to filter the sediment (lees) first through a mesh sieve, then through unbleached coffee filters. We call the result liquid sleeping pills.

My parents had another and faster process: putting plumbs in good brandy and waiting 6 months.

My Grandfather would put about 3 inches of Sour Cherries not pitted in each of 3 clean Gallon jugs. He would cover with sugar. The lid of the Jugs were punched with holes and cheese cloth patches over the top of the jugs and closed. They were put in a dark cellar for 5-6 weeks. After that time he would open the Jugs and fill them about 2/3 of the way to the top with 180 proof everclear (grain alcohol) The cherries at that time would have been all wrinkled like raisins. After a month in the cellar the liquid would be a very slight pink and the cherries were big and plumb. He would pour all the liquid through cheese cloth and then in to Decanters. The Cherries would be washed in a colander and stored in wide mouth jars. Only the adults were allowed to drink the Vishnick, but the Grandchildren could partake of the Cherries. Go and figure.

Cherries have natural yeast on their surface so if you do not wash the cherries but place them in a jar with sugar they should ferment. According to my late grandfather (who made many, many batches of vishnick) you should allow it to ferment in a dark location for at least a year and then drain off the liquor after a year. The original jar should be covered by a breathable fabric (so it doesn't explode from the carbon dioxide (fermentation product). I did attempt this process but I ended up with larvae after a few weeks from the eggs that must have been contained on the surface of the cherries. Still working on perfecting this simple technique.

Having made a ton of wines (including cherry wine), sodas, pickles, beer and other fermented goodies I can tell you that the most important thing is going to be having a sanitized/sterile environment. Use a sanitizer such as One-Step on all of your containers, utensils and even your hands. Don't allow anything that's not sanitized to go into your fermenting container. Wash your cherries well, or buy some from a wine company that are pasteurized to ensure that there are no contaminants on the fruit (otherwise you can boil yours). I have used Vintners Harvest Fruit Wine Making Bases before, which include 96-oz cans of cherries.

Your fermenting container is going to need an airlock (sanitize it!), and fortunately for small-scale fermenters this company makes something much less gigantic than the 5 or 6-gallon bucket you'll find at a homebrew store: http://www.pickl-it.com/products/singles/

I haven't tried wild fermenting, and if you start with sanitized ingredients you won't have any wild yeasts. Depends on what kind of finished product you want, there are a ton of great yeasts out there, go to your homebrew store, tell them what you're making, and I'm sure they'll give you advice on what yeast to go with. Other things such as yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, etc, may or may not be necessary depending on what kind of final product you're looking for.

For what its worth, I recently made Cherry Bounce with Montmorency Cherries I picked from Door County, WI and Brandy. I used a liter of brandy, about 1.5 cups of PITTED cherries, and about .33 cup of turbinado sugar. I mixed it up in the bottle and let sit for 4 months.

It is delicious. If it were me, Id simply do the same but with vodka. There is not a lot that can go too wrong here..not sure you can make vodka taste any worse. ;)