Tutti Fruity

On the surface, Tutti Fruity is a tropical fruit drink with spice and exotic flavors. In fact, it is a very Italian drink with amaretto and maraschino cherry liqueur. I used Lazzaroni amaretto and Luxardo liqueur brands, so no domestic knock offs here.

But "tutti" in Italian (especially in orchestral direction) means to combine voices following a solo. That is what you have here, a combination of fruit, each doing a counterpoint to each others' melodies that we already know so well. There's summery peaches and winter pears and apples. There's cherry (and I dropped some of my wishniak soaked cherries into the blender to up the alcohol content and dark fruit flavors for bass effect), and there's apples for juiciness.

Peels are pureed and give the drink texture and flavor as well. Then there's the funky interplay between gin spice with Bombay Sapphire East in my recipe (with lemongrass and black pepper botanicals) and almond and maraschino liqueurs that are a little bittersweet. If you have a lot of fruit and the liquors on hand, this is a "must do!"

• 2 oz. diced apples
• 2 oz. diced pears
• 2 oz. diced peaches
• 3 oz. gin
• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. maraschino liqueur
• 1 oz. pitted Michigan cherries (optional but recommended)

Combine all ingredients in a blender with 1 cup of cracked ice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a chilled highball glass. (Makes two servings.)

Wishniak Gin & Tonic

The Wishniak G & T makes use of the wishniak I made for the Lady Finger in the previous entry. It is a way to up-class a G & T and give it some cherry flavor that's not too sweet. If you make the wishniak yourself, save a cherry for a garnish--it looks really impressive.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 1 1/2 oz. wishniak
• tonic water
• lime slice
• black cherry

Combine gin and wishniak in a highball glass with ice. Stir and top with tonic. Garnish with fruit.

Lady Finger

This is a kirsh drink that might be named after the thin tea cookies or it might be connected to those Chinese fireworks that go off in a chain explosion. Either way, this is not a very lady-like drink. It calls for wishniak, which is a Russian cordial made from cherry juice and vodka. It also was a flavor of Canada Dry a while back--sort of like a dark cherry ginger ale. I'm sure that this cocktail calls for the former ingredient, though.

So I set out to make an infusion to approximate wishniak. Like many eastern European spirits, it's the kind of thing that people do at home with their vodka anyway. I removed the pits and stems from a cup of Michigan cherries and soaked them in 100-proof vodka for two days. Then I added 1/2 cup tart cherry juice (store-bought and sweetened with apple juice). This gave the mix a juicy but rich cherry flavor. Along with kirsh, you really couldn't tell that the base of this cocktail was gin.

• 2 oz. gin
• 1 oz. kirschwasser
• 1 1/2 oz. wishniak

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.