Mémée’s Cherries

Of all my great-grandmother’s recipes, this is the one I remember best. She gave my mother several jars of these preserved cherries when my mother came to England, and there are still some left, a precious few, in a big jar at the bottom of the liqueur cabinet. On special occasions, we drink a little of the liqueur, with a single cherry at the bottom of the glass. The cherries are forty years old now, and they have macerated for so long that even the stones – and the little nut inside – are