This is a drink my boyfriend picked out, thinking that the heavily cherry concoction sounded like a fun experiment for my burgeoning skills. It was indeed a good test—I hadn’t worked with anything but liquor, liqueur, mixers and straight juices—and the real-fruit content of the Very Chanilla made it sound like an appealing change, as well as an appealing cocktail.

The base of this drink is a fruit puree made of cherries. I used Morello cherries, which have a softer texture than maraschinos, but they preserve more tartness than sweetness, as well as the beautiful dark red color of fresh Bing cherries.

1 oz vanilla vodka
1/2 oz cherry schnapps
1 oz cherry puree
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 lime, juiced
4 griotte cherries

Shake all ingredients together, pour into old-fashioned glass and serve.

As previously stated, I used Morello cherries to make the puree, as well as for the whole fruit in this mixture. I couldn’t find cherry schnapps (even at the almighty BevMo), so I substituted with the cherry flavored Heering liqueur.

The end result was heavy—due to the puree and crushed cherries—with a sweet tartness that is oddly refreshing despite it’s smoothie-ish appearance.