10/16/2026
Welcome to Distillers Digest, Edition 5: Maraschino Cherries Are Plastic
Let’s talk cherries. America has been force-feeding us these our whole lives. The maraschino cherry was supposed to be the gold standard of fruit: a bright, sugary little bomb of joy that makes every Mai Tai and Shirley Temple look exotic.
Then you learn what happens to them before they reach your glass. They’re brined and bleached until every trace of natural color and flavor is gone, then pumped full of sugar and dyed with FD&C Red 40. Add a splash of bitter almond oil, bury them in syrup, and you get candy that has never met a real cherry.
Because nothing says “craft cocktail” like a credit-card-textured nugget swimming in almond oil. And we’ve been eating them for decades.
We serve Luxardo cherries. Word on the street is they cost 20x more than those plastic marbles, and one bite shows why. They taste like actual fruit, not the memory of sucking on a Hot Wheels car when you were five.
This is Distillers Digest our new weekly series where we take whatever's rattling around in our brains and turn it into something (hopefully) funny. Mispronunciations, myths, weird bar questions, the works.
Got a topic you want us to tackle next? Drop it below. We promise to handle it with the same level of respect we just gave Maraschino Cherries!
