Two litres of cherry brandy

When the cherries were ripe, my neighbour Emilia came up to the house with a business-like glass bottle - the home-made wine making kind. She'd already picked the fruit off my trees, and now showed me how to make traditional cherry liqueur. Rinse fruit, remove stems and leaves, and stuff into bottle until crammed. Pour in sugar. Ram in cork and put bottle outside in sun for a week. Seven days later Emilia returned, and in the meantime I'd acquired half a litre of pure alcohol. Pour the sugary cherry juice through a funnel into a two-litre water bottle, top it up with the alcohol, screw the top on and bob's your second cousin. Delicious blood-coloured cherry brandy. Nothing like the muck you buy at Christmas - this is fruity, fresh, potent and utterly yummy.