This past week, the kids and I went over to my parents’ house to help pick pie cherries from the tree they have in their backyard. You know what that means?! It’s officially the start of canning season! We look forward to canning our own home-grown fruits and veggies every year, but this year, the cherries didn’t get sprayed in time. If you know cherries, you know not getting sprayed in time means WORMS. We did figure out a way to salvage the cherries because it was going to make me sick to do ANYTHING that would result in eating worms (if there’s anything worse than finding a worm in your food, it’s finding HALF a worm in your food! Trust me, I know…), and it would have been so sad to have to throw away as many cherries as we got this year. Here’s our solution for using wormy cherries:
Sour Cherry Syrup
6-1/2 c. sour cherry juice
11 c. sugar
5-1/2 c. water
3/4 c. lime juice
Wash and pit cherries. (I’m not sure how many cherries it takes to make that 6-1/2 cups of cherry juice. We had several Tupperware bowls full and juiced them all. There was enough juice to make this batch, and cherry jelly, AND probably enough for another batch of syrup.) Run cherries through a juicer. Strain juice through cheese cloth and let sit for a few hours to separate. Try to use the clear juice, rather than the cloudy part, to make your syrup. In a large pot, mix cherry juice, sugar, water, and lime juice. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Cook over moderate heat 10 minutes. Skim off any foam. Reduce the heat and simmer about an hour, until syrupy, stirring and skimming as needed. Ladle syrup into jars. (We processed in boiling water canner for 10 minutes.)
When it first started cooking, we thought it tasted like cherry-flavored medicine, but as it continued to boil down, it tasted better. We’re planning on using the cherry syrup on pancakes, maybe over ice cream, and you can also pour 1/2″ of the syrup into a tall glass, add lots of ice cubes and club soda and drink it. 
The Cherry Jelly we made was the recipe out of the pectin box. If you don’t have a juicer, try mashing the fruit and then straining through damp cheese cloth. Even using the juicer, we lost a lot of juice, but that was better than having wormy jam or canned cherries.
If you’re looking for a great, inexpensive cherry-pitter, try www.Lehmans.com.
Thanks so much for listing this recipe. It’s exactly what I wanted. I’ve already made jelly and preserves and I wanted to make syrup with the rest of my sour cherries!! I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.
Hi Chris, I’m so glad it was helpful. I’d love to know how to turns out!
Hi,
I just read your cherry recipe and wanted to tell let you know you can prevent worms without any poison or spray at all using a very large net bag that goes over the tree just before the worms come out, and stays on till you pick them.
You can make a cover yourself but they are available commercially now through Kootenay Covers. The material is extremely UV resistant and should last many years; 3-year old covers still look like new.
The holes are just barely too small for the flies to get through so they can’t lay eggs on the cherries. The covers also prevent wasps and birds from getting your cherries, and nothing is killed in the process.
If you’re interested, check out http://www.kootenaycovers.com or email me.
Marilyn
Yea, I finealy found a Cherry Syrup recipe! I as well have made pies, jelly, frozen cherries for more pies and still have some juince left over. I will try this recipe tomorrow.
Thanks so much.
Just finished using all my Cherry Juice, the Syrup turned out awesome. Thanks again.