Throwback Flavor Deep Dive into Cherries: Bringing balance to The Force

Artificial cherry, on the other hand? Notes of dewormer and pencil shavings.

Have you ever stared intently into the soul of a cherry? Gather up the corners of your mind and wrap it around this fruity abyss. Let’s plumb the depths together.

The fundamental nature of the cherry is to encapsulate darkness and light, both winter and summer — they set blossoms as the former fades and ripen at the peak of the latter. In short, they bring balance to The Force.

These are dark sweet cherries. Depending on the variety, there’s sweetness and tartness in varying ratios, but what I find really fascinating are the woody, resinous notes from its heart of stone.

The saying, “Life is just a bowl of cherries” is from a Broadway revue called Scandals. Ethel Merman first performed it, in 1931– probably quite something to witness, but I really love this version from Judy Garland. There’s an undercurrent of sadness.

“The strongest oak must fall/The best things in life to you were just loaned/So how can you lose what you never owned/Life is just a bowl of cherries/So live and laugh at it all…”

Look at them — the luminous reflections, the dark shadows, the golden speckles. Plump and perfectly rounded, perfectly bruised, perfectly dented. Just like life.

Pitting them must be done carefully, lest you miss one and crack a tooth, but no matter how precise you endeavor to be, it’s going to be a mess. Wear a dark shirt. For scary movie fans, this is a plus. It’s quite the horror show.

But let’s return to the flavor. It’s important to note that artificial cherry flavor is heretical, an abomination not just fully divorced from the subtle delights of the real thing, but in blasphemous opposition. The primary notes: dewormer, turpentine, and pencil shavings.

But a real, fresh cherry? Little compares. With a Rainier cherry in particular, I feel you can literally taste the sunshine, but with dark ones like these, it’s the warm night air that draws me in — if swinging in a hammock under the night sky were a flavor.

In addition, there are spicy, tannic, and nutty notes, making it equally at home with sweet and savory, hot and cold, chocolate or vanilla.

If you think about it, what you taste, whether you’re thinking of our incandescent sun by day, or the twinkling night sky, is stars.

If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Don’t fear.

Life is just a bowl of cherries.