my son and me have discussed buying property together. he wants lumber trees grown on half of it for his retirement and is leaving the other half for me to do what i wish. i want to grow raspberries, currants and elderberries to sell at the farmers markets. all the fruit we get up here comes from mexico! thats crazy as raspberries are like weeds here. someday when I’m gone he can take over and continue my legacy. now to find the land.
Do you use the juice for medicinal purposes as well? I’ve heard tart cherry juice is really good for gout, but also high in beneficial nutrients.
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@subdood_ky_z6b
We drink the juice all winter and it does help to sleep well and stay healthy in my opinion. Tart Cherries as you mentioned are one of the super fruits according to experts. Tart cherries though not as high in antioxidants as elderberries, blueberries, Aronia, blackberries , & acai are on the same chart and frequently compared to the best super fruits.
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Interesting. I wonder how it helps sleep. Oh, just found this article, apparently it contains some melatonin and enhances tryptophan? Also mitigates arthritic and muscle pain, and good for the brain, among other benefits.
Hopefully this year my 5ft Juliet cherry bush (3rd leaf) will provide us a few fruit. Not enough for juicing, but at least some to try out. How long did it take your CJ plants to start producing?
Really looking forward to this year’s harvests: first substantial crop of strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries, wild plums, as well as some blueberries, apples, remote chance of some pears, tart cherries and if the weather cooperates, peaches. A lot of presumption on my part, but one can hope.
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Since I don’t have a high volume of cherries yet, I pit mine with the butt end of wooden skewer. Montmorency pits pop out so easily I sometimes don’t see them. Carmin Jewel is a little more difficult because a small bit of flesh is still attached to the pit. I have to poke the pit out, then pull the pit free. Is this normal for CJ? What about the Romance cherries?
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I think this link will help say it all on age, bloom time, cherry yield etc
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Has anyone tried fermenting their romance cherries into wine or a carbonated drink? Mine should be bearing pretty good next year depending how they handle the transplant to the new place. I thought that this might be a good way to preserve or use the abundance of cherries, but not sure if it might be a bit too tart unless I cut it with something to help mellow it out.
I don’t know how acidic CJ is compared to raspberries or traditional tart cherries, for example, but in winemaking w/ fruit, or wild grapes, it is common to add a certain amount of fruit per gallon, well below the gallon-worth of liquid (typically 3-6 lbs of fruit but it varies on fruit type, how much is available, how strong you like the fruit taste in your finished wine, etc…).
One of the reasons people do this is to ameliorate the acid–just as you wouldn’t make a “better” lemonade by squeezing a full gallon worth of lemon juice and adding sugar to it, many wines are made with fruit plus a certain amount of water (and sugar to get an acceptable starting gravity). In fact, one of the worst cranberries I have ever had I am convinced was simply because they used too many cranberries…it was too tart and too tannic, like sucking limes out of a sock.
Edit: personally I like a fair bit of tart, barberas and sauvignon blancs are some of my favorite wines. from that I’d probably start at 6 lbs of CJ per gallon of water, and guessing like 2.5 lbs of sugar, as well as nutrient and tannin. I’d do some with 1-2 banannas per gallon and ferment to dry, then perhaps oak, to try to make a “big red,” and also do some with a lighter yeast, like cote des blancs, to make a sweeter, fruitier rendition. (I make a lot of wine as-is, I did 22 gallons of pear this fall)
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It looks like the Wowza cherry fits the description of the “Cupid” variety of the Romance cherries - or something very closely related. Cupid is the only Romance variety noted to have an elongated pit as mentioned in the ad.
http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/crops/hort/bv2016/haskap-dwarfsourcherry-prodn-2016-reduced.pdf
Of the released Romance cherries, Cupid is noted for the largest fruit size (twice Carmine Jewel), latest bloom and ripening, high fruit/pit ratio, high color intensity, and medium brix (17 - similar to Romeo and Juliet).
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Cupid is very dark, that does not fit description.
It looks a lot lighter than Carmine Jewel does. It may be a new one too. That cannot be ruled out. It does say Wowza has an elogated pit like Cupid, but cupid is darker looking, can be almost black. Maybe they got bad photos, so i won’t rule out cupid, although in my opinion those cherry photos of Wowza on the Gurney’s site are not cupid.
See photos at
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If wowza is anything like it appears to be in the pictures it’s a nice cherry! $79.99 is a high price!
"Wowza!™ Dwarf Cherry
Write the First Review
Huge, Vivid Red Fruits
Picking is easy, and the fruits are huge with our newest bush cherry tree. Naturally dwarfed, Wowza! produces plenty of tart, red cherries that cook up beautifully in pies and desserts—no dyes needed!
Huge cherries! Fruits grow up to twice the size of our popular Carmine Jewel cherries. They have an excellent flesh-to-pit ratio, so you’ll have plenty to enjoy. Each plant yields up to 20 lbs.
Manageable plants! Wowza! grows 5-8 ft. tall—so netting, pruning and harvesting can often be done while standing on the ground. Plus, it can be grown in patio containers.
Cold hardy! Developed at the University of Saskatchewan, Wowza! handles the cold and is a great choice for Northern growers. Grows in zones 2-7.
Years of Research! More than 50 years of research has gone into developing cherry trees with cold hardiness, dwarf stature and good fruit quality. Wowza! comes from the same breeding program that brought you Carmine Jewel, Romeo and Juliet.
Only offered to home gardeners! Wowza! has an elongated pit that is unsuitable for most mechanical harvesters. That means this outstanding cherry will only be available for home gardens and u-pick operations. Gurney’s is proud to be the first nursery to offer Wowza! to home gardeners. We have a limited supply available for spring 2019. Be sure to order yours today. Zones 2-7. PPAF.
"
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Yeah that last photo says it all, Cupid is as dark as Carmine Jewel, that cherry is not. Possibly picked early though? Who knows? Yes price is steep I will wait.It does look like a very nice cherry, as is Cupid. Gurney’s mentions a good flesh to pit ratio. Cupid does not, it has a larger pit.
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Yes, I have made a kind of cherry cider out of the Romance cherries. I bottled it just over a year ago and still have a few bottles left - just put one in the freezer to chill, so I’ll give it a try and see how it keeps after a year.
When my cherries ripen I make a concentrate by heating the cherries very slowly with just a tiny bit of water (to prevent burning at the start), then I bring them to boil and strain the mixture through cheese cloth. That concentrated juice I can in a hot water canner, usually in quart (liter) jars. When it was time to make the cider, I made up a 23 litre batch (equivalent to 6 US gallons I think). I used 8 litres of cherry juice concentrate – a mix of Carmine Jewel, Romeo and Juliet juice, then brought up to the 23 litre mark with tap water. So I’m using 1 part juice to 2 parts water. That gives a fantastic red color to the cider and a good flavor. In the end I do an in-bottle fermentation to carbonate the brew, similar to home beer-making. The cherry cider I made is about 6% alcohol by volume.
You do still definitely notice the acidity and since I am quite sensitive to acidity I kind of wish there was a way to get rid of it. Maybe I should try a batch with Juliet cherry juice only, since I find it the least acid of the 5 kinds of sour cherry I grow. But most people would have no problem with the level of acidity I think. I could dilute the juice more than my 1:2 ratio, but I feel the resulting loss of flavor would be more negative than dealing with a bit of acidity. (I did some experimenting before making the brew to come up with the best balance between flavor and acidity, that’s how I came up with the 1:2 ratio as being optimal.) I’d say the sourness level and strength of taste is very similar to what you find in a commercial hard apple cider, but I find those a bit acid for my taste also.
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so WOWZA is TM, not patented… someone bite the bullet and buy one 4 the group. 
Don if acidity is an issue you can add precipitated chalk, banannas, or more water
My observation of Cupid is its precocity. I got a young potted plant which fruited the second summer, still only about two feet high. Romeo did this for me also, but the young Cupid produced larger and tastier cherries.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Not more water though, as I did some testing and decided this is the cherry taste I’m looking for so wouldn’t want to dilute it. Probably not bananas either, as “pure homegrown cherry cider” has a certain appeal to me. I’ll have to look into the chalk idea, it’s not something I’ve used before in my home beer/cider/wine making. Maybe if I just use Juliet cherries that would work, as they are the easiest to eat out-of-hand.
You have to do what works for you, but I’m not sure that diluting the cherry with water is more damaging to the taste than artificially adding a base to it and creating whatever weird secondary salts you get by adding chalk or whatever else to your wine recipe…there Are tons of recipes online for fruit wines And very few of them called for Straight juice…I understand your enthusiasm but as the guy who made wine for over 10 years trust me, there’s a reason this rule of thumb came about… too much cherry would/will be just that: too much.
If you have that much cherry thats ok: make 2x or 3x the volume of an actual, drinkable wine… but making a shitty wine serves nobody. Its like the lemon example i listed before, you wouldnt actually make lemonade from straight lemonade plus sugar then blame consumers, would you???
Hey Mark, maybe we have a misunderstanding going on? Or maybe you are responding to someone else’s post and thinking it is from me?
My recipe for sour cherry cider mentioned above uses 1 part extracted cherry juice concentrate to 2 parts water. I determined this ratio based on taste-testing my cherry juice extract with various amounts of water. Pure extracted cherry juice is extremely intense, you would never want any beverage to be this intense, it’s drinkable by the shot-glass, but anything more is YIKES! But diluted with two parts water it is very tasty, further dilution makes it a bit weak IMO.
I’m not a newbie at home brewing, been doing it for over 40 years, beer, cider, wine… mostly from kits, but sometimes experimenting on my own. Have two batches of wine on the go right now, both from kits.
Do you guys taste an actual cherry flavor? My bushes are young and I had a few last year. The first couple were just watery with no flavor so I waited till the fruit was almost over ripe for the last couple. They had a watery fruit punch flavor. I’ll get more this year, but I wasn’t that impressed with the cherrieness of the flavor.