Spiked Red Currants

Our garden being overfull of currants of various sorts this summer, I decided to try steeping some red currants in liqueur à la maraschino cherries. I cleaned up some red currants and left them on their branches because they are so small. I placed these in a jar and filled it with some crème de groseille (i.e. red currant) that I made last summer.

They've been steeping for about four months and I tried some this evening. They are not going to replace maraschino cherries any time soon. They have an initial burst of sweetness from the liqueur, but then they become quite tart and of course they have all those hard little seeds. (I was hoping they would somehow disolve or soften.)

Well, it looks pretty anyway:

I made two cocktails using my new garnish. The one pictured here is a gin martini with a generous splash of crème de cassis (made from last summer's black currants). I also made one for Jessica which featured Grey Goose vodka (since I ran out of gin), juice of one lemon, and another generous splash of cassis. Both cocktails were good if on the sweeter end of what we normally like.