If last week’s Twice as Tasty column explaining how to smoke cherries blew your mind, the recipe I share this week in the Flathead Beacon will explode your tastebuds. Few cocktail garnishes surpass cherries that have been smoked and then preserved in bourbon. If you go big and smoke most of your cherry harvest or the flats you buy from a local orchard, these cherries are delicious in baked goods too, including the recipe I’ll share in my next column.

Smoking can preserve food on its own, but the short smoking time I recommend for fruits and vegetables is really just about flavor. Smoked cherries last a little longer than fresh ones, but they remain so juicy that they eventually will spoil and mold in the refrigerator. Submerging them in alcohol stops that spoilage process. As long as the cherries remain covered in the liquid and I dip into the jar with a clean spoon every time I garnish a cocktail, I can store them at fridge temperature until the next harvest.

Learn more about alcohol infusions and get the complete recipe for Bourbon-Infused Smoked Cherries in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Whenever I throw a cocktail party or teach a cocktail workshop, my garden’s bounty steals the show. Between mixers and garnishes, almost everything I grow can be incorporated into alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.

A handful of fresh herbs or edible flowers is enough to infuse a simple syrup or shrub and give each glass a festive look. Berries and fruit provide sweet notes. Fresh cucumbers have a mild undertone, whereas pickled and fermented ones and their brine hit the tongue strongly. Tomatoes form the basis for classics like a Bloody Mary, and tomatillos give a naturally sweet-and-sour layer in margaritas. Even root vegetables like beets and carrots can play a part in earthy, savory drinks.

Besides whiskey-infused cherries, here are just a few recipes on the blog that I keep on hand for mixing cocktails and mocktails. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Spring Asparagus Pickles
• Fridge-Pickled Pepperoncini and cocktail onions, pickled in vinegar or fermented, from my pickling cookbook
• Rhubarb-Ginger Seltzer
• Raspberry Shrub
• Mint simple syrup to use in drinks like Mega-Mint Mojito
• Frozen Strawberry Syrup
• Homemade Triple Sec (Orange Liqueur)
• Herb-Infused Sugar
• Smoky Homemade Chili Paste

If you want your smoked cherries to last without preserving them in alcohol, freeze them on a tray, transfer them to a container, and keep them in the freezer. You can learn more about the techniques I use to freeze fruits and vegetables on this blog page.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.