Hey, remember these? Where I try a new drink every week? Yeah, that still happens, but they don’t get written up much. After a recent comment from a reader, I decided to crank out a quickie. You heard me.

This one involves a very special ingredient: Dr. McGillicuddy’s Cherry liqueur. The Lady Friend’s family is mostly responsible for introducing me to Dr. McGillicuddy’s, as they’re slightly obsessed with it, specifically the Mentholmint variety. It tastes like liquid candy canes, and is reportedly quite nice to imbibe while ice fishing. It’s a holiday family tradition in their world, and multiple bottles of it are gifted at the annual Yankee Swap. I have accrued quite a collection myself, and will admit that “The Doctor” makes a nice companion on a winter afternoon walk.

Having been introduced to The Doctor, I was aware that there were a range of flavors available, though never explored them until shopping in a NH liquor store this past summer. A fishbowl full of nip bottles (damn those bastards indulging my impulsive shopping tendencies) held a little surprise that caught my eye: a cherry flavor of the good doctor. I don’t know if I hadn’t noticed it before, but the cherry flavor intrigued me, so I added it into my order. Later that night “upta camp” with the Lady Friend’s clan, we passed the diminutive dram around the campfire for critique. The response was generally positive, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s more like cough drops rather than cough syrup, sweet “black cherry” tart, with just a hint of alcohol warmth. A nice change for the tastebuds after swilling beer all day long. After that I had meant to acquire more of this magical nectar, but somehow it got put off until this past weekend’s visit to NH (the land of lower prices, no sales tax, and no bottle deposits) when finally a full-size bottle was in my clutches. I wanted to mix it with something, and the sweet cherry practically begged to be paired with lime.

This one is an original, as near as I can tell. It’s basically a cherry daiquiri of sorts. Other recipes suggest using Cherry Heering (which has long been on my wishlist), whole/muddled cherries, blended cherries, cherry brandy/kirshwasser or even cherry-infused rum. The infused rum sounds like a good idea, but not sure if it’s actually that tasty in reality; I’ll have to try it out myself. I use a simple 2:1:1 ratio for my sours, with two part spirit, one part citrus, and one part sweetener. It’s an easy way to remember it, and allows you to switch liquors to make just about any sour. Vodka, lime, and triple sec is a Kamikaze. Whiskey, lemon, and simple syrup is a Whiskey Sour. Tequila, lime, triple sec gets you a Margarita. So rum, lime, and simple syrup is a perfect little Daiquiri. My plan was to substitute the cherry liqueur for simple syrup in a Daiquiri formula, though with a tweak. It’s my suspicion that the cherry liqueur, though sweet, is not as sweet as simple syrup, and wouldn’t be able to quite balance out the fresh lime juice in the recipe. So I eased off of the lime a bit, hoping the adjustment would keep the drink from becoming too tart. Here’s the recipe:


Dr. Cherry Daiquiri
A Squirrelfarts Original Concoction (apparently)

– 2 oz rum (Cruzan Aged)
– 1 oz Dr. McGillicuddy Cherry Liqueur
– 3/4 oz fresh lime juice

Shake this one, and get that fresh lime juice mixed well.
Serve in a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lime wheel. Disappointingly, my lime wheel sank to the bottom of the glass rather than floating nicely one top.


Nose: It smells as you’d expect: cherry and booze. There’s a slight antiseptic heat from the rum, which gives more of a Nyquil essence to the cherry notes.

Taste: Tart overall. The rum (a lighter variety) adds more boozy sting than anything else to the flavor. The cherry is certainly there in the flavor, and overall it’s like a cherry/limeade popsicle. As suspected, isn’t quite enough to balance the tart lime juice. It’s close, however, and a slight tweak with either more cherry or less lime would equal things out pretty well. I prefer my drinks more on the tart, rather than sweet side, so it’s close enough for me to enjoy it. With some booze. It’s pretty good, but the rum really doesn’t bring much to the table here. A nicer, more flavorful rum would certainly add more complexity and some complimentary vanilla notes, perhaps bringing along some molasses sweetness. A drop or two of bitters wouldn’t be out of place here either, but it’s a pretty good start.


Now I’m tempted to use this cherry liqueur in a Manhattan-style drink. That could be… dangerous…