A gas­trique is a caramelized sug­ar, deglazed with vine­gar that is often used by gourmet chefs as a thick, sweet-and-sour sauce. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gan­der. A gas­trique can help you bright­en the fla­vor and col­or palette of your favorite cock­tail recipes.

The recipe for my cher­ry gas­trique is below, but feel free to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent vine­gars such as red wine, cham­pagne or cider vine­gars. Try pair­ing these vine­gars with oth­er accent fla­vors like lemon peel, chiles, blood orange or blue­ber­ries. Your oppor­tu­ni­ties are endless.

Don’t for­get you can always apply it with cui­sine as well. Use it as a com­po­nent to a dessert, pour­ing it over black­ber­ry pie á la Mode. Or as a com­ple­ment to an appe­tiz­er or snack, driz­zling it over brie and crusty french bread. Think of all the oppor­tu­ni­ties with french toast. Ok, this is mak­ing me hun­gry. Back to the recipe.

Recipe

• 4 cups burnt sugar
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup of cher­ry juice
• 1 cup of white vinegar
• 2 cups of fresh pit­ted cherries
• 1/2 of a vanil­la bean

1. In a pot cook 4 cups of sug­ar on medi­um heat until the sug­ar turns a nice brown col­or like a caramel. You’ll need to con­stant­ly stir your sug­ar and keep a close eye on it so it does­n’t burn.
2. Slow­ly stir in the rest of the ingre­di­ents, incor­po­rat­ing them. Cook for half an hour to extract the fla­vors from the fresh cherries.
3. Remove from heat and set aside and let it cool. Strain into a ster­il­ized bot­tle. I like to add a shot of vod­ka to help pre­serve my syrups. This syrup has vine­gar, so I’m hop­ing it will last up to two months.

I fea­ture this cher­ry gas­trique in a cock­tail I call Thus Always To Tyrants. Notice the vibrant red col­or­ing you get by adding the cher­ry gas­trique to the recipe. If you’re inter­est­ed in mak­ing this cock­tail at home you can get the recipe here.