This Spiced Cherry Spritz is a surprisingly complex little cocktail given that it's made with only 3 ingredients. Okay, four, if you include the maraschino cherry.

The Cheerwine and Lambrusco make it a little sweet, while the Fernet Branca lends some bitterness and keeps it interesting.

Lots of cocktails 'round these parts lately

You've probably noticed that I've been sharing a lot of cocktails lately. I'm not sorry about it.

It's just a pretty good indication of where my head (and heart) has been lately. Between the stress of the holidays and associated travel, a grant deadline, and other life stress, booze just seemed like the right choice.

What ingredients go into this drink?

Let's break these ingredients down a bit:

Fernet Branca is a variety of amaro (means "bitter" in Italian), which are Italian herbal liqueurs. If you can't get your hands on Fernet Branca, you can substitute a variety of other amari.
Lambrusco is an Italian red wine. You may be familiar with the cheap, sweet, sorta fizzy Lambrusco. That is one option, but rest assured that there are plenty of other options, as well.
As for the cherry soda, I went with Cheerwine. We've talked about Cheerwine before (check out these ice cream floats!). It's a really sweet black cherry-flavored soda made by a company that's headquartered in North Carolina.
And a maraschino cherry is, well, a maraschino cherry!

Now, onto the recipe: The recipe for this cocktail is modified slightly from Bon Appétit.

✨ Recipe