The modern maraschino cherry is “a real cherry with the cherry flavor removed,” explains Darcy O’Neil, a chemist and the author of “Fix the Pumps,” a history of the soda fountain. The original version, by contrast, was a marasca cherry — a sour, dark variety cultivated on the coast of Dalmatia (now part of Croatia) beginning in the mid-19th century. It was brined in ocean water, then preserved in a liqueur made from its own juices, as well as leaves and ground-up pits.
現代的酒漬馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃（maraschino cherry，特指冰淇淋、雞尾酒，奶油蛋糕等物上的裝飾性紅櫻桃——譯注）是一種“去掉了櫻桃味的櫻桃”，化學家達西·奧尼爾(Darcy O’Neil)說，他曾出版講述冷飲機歷史的《修好水泵》(Fix the Pumps)一書。馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃是用歐洲酸櫻桃制成的，二者截然相反。歐洲酸櫻桃又酸又黑，是19世紀中期在達爾馬提亞（今克羅地亞境內）培育出來的。制作方法是將它用海水浸泡，之后用同一種櫻桃的汁液、葉子和碾碎的籽制成的甜酒腌漬。
The fruit first arrived on American shores as a luxury import around the turn of the century, along with a cheaper version made primarily in France using sugar and dyes. Large shipments of European cherries that had been preserved but not fully transformed into maraschinos were also sent to the United States — American cherries were considered unacceptable because of their mushier texture — where they, too, were made into less rarefied versions of the Croatian original.
在19世紀與20世紀之交，這種果子作為一種奢侈的進口物品來到美國大洋兩岸，此外還有一種較為便宜的法國制造品種，用糖和顏料浸漬而成。美國櫻桃被認為質地較軟，無法用來制作馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃，于是大量歐洲半成品櫻桃也被運往美國，在美國本土加工制作，但沒有克羅地亞的原產品那么正宗。
Americans happily gobbled up imitation marascas, usually flavored with vanilla or almond. But when information about how they were made was leaked, outraged articles followed. “Maraschino Cherries Violate Pure Food Law,” ran one 1907 headline. According to another report, the fruit was smoked in sulfur and packed in a noxious chemical brine before shipping; once in the factory, it was soaked in sugar syrup, flavored and dyed red with aniline, a toxic colorant made of coal-tar byproducts. So many maraschino impostors — some alcoholic and some not — hit the market that in 1912, the Food and Drug Administration issued an official statement on the difference between a real maraschino and an imitation.
美國人開心地吃著這些仿制櫻桃，通常是配香草和杏仁一起吃。但是當制作過程泄露后，開始出現憤怒的抨擊文章，1907年，一篇文章題為“馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃觸犯純凈食品法”。另一篇報道寫道，這些櫻桃經過硫磺煙熏，在運輸前被浸泡在一種臭名昭著的化學制劑里。在工廠，它們被浸入糖漿，用苯胺調味和染上紅色——苯胺是一種有毒的著色劑，由煤焦油的副產品制成。大量冒牌馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃涌入市場（有些是酒漬的，有些不是），1912年，美國食品和藥物管理局發表了一份官方聲明，澄清真假馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃的不同之處。
None of these alarming findings stopped people from eating the candied treats. It wasn’t long before American cherry growers, particularly in Oregon, where there were vast orchards, looked for ways to break into the market. Ernest Wiegand, a horticulturist at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University), focused on figuring out how best to preserve the shape and structure of local cherries to the standards Americans expected. “Preserving them with alcohol causes them to shrink,” O’Neil explains. “They become hard and wrinkled, and they don’t look like a plump, beautiful cherry.” In 1925, Wiegand discovered that adding calcium salts to the preserving brine firmed up the fruit. With a few modifications, this is still the method used to make maraschinos today. And while the maraschino we know has long been a kind of Frankenstein’s monster of the fruit world, in a Manhattan or on a sundae it offers a certain reliable comfort. “It’s got this burst of sweetness and sugar and childhood in it,” O’Neil says. “And those are good associations.”
這些警告并沒有阻止人們繼續食用這種甜品。不久后，美國櫻桃種植者，特別是擁有大片果園的俄勒岡州的種植者們找到辦法打入這個市場。厄內斯特·維甘德是俄勒岡農業學院（今俄勒岡州立大學）的園藝學家，他致力于讓本土櫻桃的形狀和質地在腌漬過程能夠達到美國人期待的標準。“用酒精腌漬會讓它們縮水，”奧尼爾說，“會讓它們變硬起皺，看上去就不像美麗豐滿的櫻桃了。”1925年，維甘德發現，在腌漬液中加入鈣鹽，會讓櫻桃變得質地堅實。經過若干調整，這個方法如今仍應用在制作馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃的工序中。我們熟悉的馬拉斯奇諾櫻桃早已成為水果界的弗蘭肯斯坦怪物，但當它隨曼哈頓雞尾酒和圣代冰淇淋一起端上來的時候，還是讓人有種安心的舒適感。“它包含了關于甜蜜、糖果和童年的感覺，”奧尼爾說。“這些都是美妙的聯想。”
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