Heering
The Danish cherry brandy that has, since 1818, defined the cherry-liqueur cocktail category. Peter F. Heering’s recipe—bitter Stevns cherries, almond extract from the cherry pits, oak aging, neutral grain spirit, sugar—is the canonical cherry-brandy reference for the Singapore Sling, the Blood and Sand, and the broader cherry-liqueur tradition.
Heering is the Danish brand that has been making cherry brandy in Copenhagen since Peter F. Heering founded the operation in 1818. The recipe—built around the bitter Stevns cherry varietal native to Denmark’s Sjælland island, with almond character pulled from the crushed cherry pits, plus oak aging and sugar—has remained substantially unchanged across two centuries. Heering is the canonical cherry-brandy reference for the cocktail world, and the bottle that the Singapore Sling, the Blood and Sand, and most cherry-brandy recipes assume.
The production process matters. The Stevns cherries are harvested in late summer, lightly pressed to release juice, and the resulting cherry-juice maceration is combined with neutral grain spirit at the start of the process. The crushed cherry pits—which provide the almond character that distinguishes Heering from simpler cherry-juice-and-sugar liqueurs—are macerated separately and combined back into the blend. The whole mixture rests in oak vats for an extended period (the brand cites multiple years, though the exact aging duration varies by lot). The result is bottled at 24% ABV—lower than most spirits but typical for European fruit liqueurs.
The Singapore Sling connection is the brand’s most-cited cocktail credential. The original 1915-era Raffles Hotel recipe—reconstructed by various cocktail historians from menus, bartender interviews, and surviving documentation—specifies Heering as the cherry-brandy component. Modern Singapore Sling reconstructions almost universally specify Heering by name; substitutions with budget cherry brandies (Bols, Marie Brizard) produce cocktails that are recognizable but meaningfully less complex. For a serious Singapore Sling program, Heering is required.
Beyond the Singapore Sling, Heering anchors the Blood and Sand (the 1922 Robert Howard cocktail combining Scotch, sweet vermouth, cherry brandy, and orange juice), the Singapore Sling variants, and a range of less-canonical mid-century cocktails that called for cherry brandy generically. The brand was particularly important to the pre-Prohibition American cocktail tradition that the 1990s revival reconstructed, and Heering’s continuous production through the 20th century—unlike many European cocktail liqueurs that disappeared during Prohibition and the World Wars—meant the bottle was always available when revival-era bartenders went looking.
A note on the broader cherry-liqueur category. The category includes both true cherry brandy (made from cherry distillate) and cherry liqueur (cherry-flavored neutral spirit). Heering sits in between—the production uses neutral grain spirit as the base but pulls genuine cherry character from real fruit and pits. The brand’s labeling has shifted over the years between cherry brandy and cherry liqueur depending on EU regulations; the current bottling is labeled cherry liqueur but is still the same product.
Where to buy: Specialty retailers (Total Wine, BevMo, K&L), online specialty stores; intermittent availability at standard liquor stores.