Maraschino Cherries with stems in Hard Lemonade

[Bauerbrewery1989]

So I found a recipe on this forum for some hard lemonade, and I miiigghhht have over done it on the sugar, and its now lemon wine (tastes exactly like a liquid lemon head). Anyway I made 3 gallons and decided to put some maraschino cherries in it to make cherry lemonade. Ill force carb it to make it like a soda....with 12% alcohol. My question is, should I destem the cherries before adding to secondary? It's already stabilized but I didn't know if the stems will give any off flavors.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Great first post...

Take the stems off...Why would you leave them on?
You might be better off using cherry juice since its post fermentation and you said it was stabilized.
Plus you'll save on a ton of trub.

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

I guess my mentality of it was if I tried to destem them I would lose some juice in the process. I agree 100% with you the juice would be easier but I couldnt find just maraschino cherry juice when I was getting supplies.
Thank you for the reply!

 

[zachattack]

You could add some maraschino liqueur, or kirsch, or some other cherry liqueur... why not up the ABV even more?

Haha you could also add the syrup from the jar of cherries, or it looks like you can maybe find maraschino extract online.

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

Haha, when in doubt, add liquer. (Famous last words of my memory of many nights) I ended up de-stemming the cherries and added it with the syrup. It tastes amazing. Now I just have to figure out how to force carb it, I'm gonna try to rig something up with a mini-keg.