A Cherry Vodka Sour is a delicious riff on the Vodka Sour, a classic cocktail. It retains all of the great qualities of the original drink, but incorporates sweet cherry flavor and gorgeous color.
It's vibrant dark pink color is the result of the cherry-flavored simple syrup and that fluffy, foamy topping is created by double shaking the cocktail with a raw egg white. Don't let the sophisticated presentation fool you, though. These cherry vodka sours are so easy to shake up!
Looking for more vodka cocktails? Try my Espresso Martini or Strawberry Lemonade Vodka Cocktail!
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🌟 Why You'll Love This Recipe
It's delicious. Sweet, tart, cherry-flavored. What more could you want?
This drink is beautiful. It's a gorgeous deep red hue with a foamy top.
It's actually easy to make. Despite how fancy this drink looks, it's actually very easy to shake up!
💭 What is a Cherry Vodka Sour?
A Cherry Vodka Sour is, simply put, a cherry-flavored version of a classic Vodka Sour cocktail.
At their most basic, sour cocktails are composed of three things: a liquor, citrus juice, and a sweetener. In this case, we're using vodka, lemon juice, and a cherry-infused simple syrup. Plus a few other ingredients.
Let's talk about the ingredients below.
📝 Ingredients
- Lemon juice: Freshly squeezed, please. I highly suggest taking the extra bit of effort to squeeze a lemon or two to make this drink. The flavor is so much better than the pre-squeezed stuff that you'll find at the grocery store.
- Cherry simple syrup: Cherry simple syrup is just simple syrup that's been infused with the beautiful color and flavor of cherries. Store bought or homemade will work here.
- Vodka: I used a plain, decent quality vodka for this drink. There's no need to break the bank here, but please also make sure that you're using something that you wouldn't hate to drink straight up.
- Bitters: Angostura bitters are traditional in a sour cocktail, but cherry bitters would work nicely, too! I've also used lemon bitters.
- Egg white: A raw egg white is what gives your sour cocktail that beautiful foamy topping. If you aren't so keen on using a raw egg white in your cocktail, check out the FAQs for some alternatives.
- Garnish: I garnished each cocktail with three maraschino cherries on a cocktail pick. But you do you!
👩🏻🍳 How do you make a Cherry Vodka Sour?
It's not very difficult to make, though it does require twice as much shaking as you may be used to when making a shaken cocktail.
You'll start out by adding all ingredients (minus the garnish) to a cocktail shaker WITHOUT ice. Cap the shaker and shake shake shake for 30 seconds. I realize that you don't usually shake cocktails without ice. But trust me; this is what will give you that super thick foam on top of the cocktail.
Next, you'll uncap the shaker and add ice. Cap it again and shake shake shake for an additional 30 seconds. Fair warning: your hands will get pretty cold when shaking the cocktail once you've added ice. This is a good thing! It means that your drink is getting to be frosty cold.
After that, you'll strain your cocktail into a coupe glass and garnish it with a cocktail pick and as many cherries as your heart desires. Mine desired three.
🔗 Other delicious recipes that use vodka
In search of more vodka-based cocktails? Check out these other recipes from A Nerd Cooks and other bloggers. You won't be disappointed. This Cherry Amaretto Sour is a particularly good option.
- Vodka Sours from A Nerd Cooks
- Classic Dry Martini from The Gourmet Bon Vivant
- Dirty Shirley Cocktails from A Nerd Cooks
- Lemon Hot Toddy with Vodka from Slow Living Kitchen
- Strawberry Cucumber Gimlet from A Nerd Cooks
- Pear Vodka Sours from Mitten Girl
❓FAQs/Tips and Tricks
Nope, egg whites are not mandatory. If you're vegan/can't eat eggs/opposed to the idea of it, you could also use aquafaba (the liquid that's in a can of chickpeas) as a substitute! This blog post will tell you how to do it.
Yes! If you are looking to achieve a thick layer of fluffy foam on top, then I definitely recommend shaking this drink twice (first the dry shake, then the wet shake). It's a bit of an arm workout, but 100% worth it.
Sure! There are many variations out there on sour cocktails. I have a recipe for Tequila Sours, in fact.
You can drink this cocktail out of pretty much any kind of glass. The coupe and sours glasses are just particularly well suited to these kinds of cocktails.
Yes! Since this cocktail is flavored with an infused simple syrup, you can feel free to swap in any number of flavored syrups if you want to change things up. Just as suggestions, take a look at my Blueberry Simple Syrup or Raspberry Simple Syrup recipes.
✨ Recipe
Cherry Vodka Sour
Equipment
- Cocktail jigger
- Boston shaker
- Hawthorne strainer
- Cocktail picks
- Coupe glasses
Ingredients
- 1 ounce lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 ounce cherry simple syrup
- 2 ounces vodka
- 3 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1 egg white
- 3 maraschino cherries for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Add all ingredients (minus the cherries) to a cocktail shaker WITHOUT ice. Cap it and shake for 30 seconds.
- Uncap the shaker and add ice. Recap it and shake again for 30 more seconds.
- Strain the cocktail into a coupe glass and garnish with cherries on a cocktail pick.
Notes
- You can use a bit of aquafaba (the liquid in a can of chickpeas) as a substitute for the egg white, if desired
Disclaimer: Nutritional information is a generated estimate and is not guaranteed to be accurate.
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Richard Lunsford
Could grenadine be used instead of cherry simple syrup?
laurenpacek
Sure you can try using grenadine! Just keep in mind that grenadine is actually a pomegranate syrup (or at least the good quality stuff is), so the flavor won't be exactly the same as if you use a cherry simple syrup. But for the convenience factor alone, grenadine ought to work out well!