Tart cherry juice substitutes

The best all-round match, because it is one of very few widely sold juices that is genuinely sour rather than sweet, and its colour is nearly identical.

Best for

cocktails and mocktails, sauces for duck, pork and lamb, sorbet and granita, smoothies and drinking straight

More tannic and winey, with a drying grip on the finish that cherry does not have, and none of cherry's soft almond aroma. In a cocktail the result tastes slightly more serious and less fruity; in a pan sauce it reduces to a darker, glossier glaze. If you need the cherry note specifically, a single drop of almond extract per cup gets you surprisingly close.

Another true sour juice with a similar red colour, and generally the easiest of these to find on a supermarket shelf.

Best for

cocktails and spritzes, punches, glazes and reductions, baking

Sharper and more astringent than tart cherry, with a bright high-pitched sourness rather than a deep one, and it lacks any cherry roundness, so the drink tastes leaner and a little harsh without the added sugar. Cranberry juice cocktail, the sweetened kind, needs no extra sugar at all but tastes noticeably candied. Colour runs a shade more pink and less garnet.

The right fruit but the wrong balance, and the lemon fixes precisely the thing that is missing. This is the closest you get in flavour terms.

Best for

when the cherry flavour matters most, sodas and mocktails, cherry sauces and pie fillings, smoothies

Straight, sweet cherry juice makes everything taste like a soft drink, syrupy and one-note, because the sourness is doing structural work you cannot see. With the lemon added it is genuinely convincing, keeping the correct cherry aroma while regaining the bite. Taste as you go, since bottled sweet cherry juices vary hugely in sugar. A pinch of salt also sharpens perceived acidity.

Making the real thing, which takes five minutes and tastes better than most bottles. Jarred morello or sour cherries in syrup work too, though you should account for their sugar.

Best for

the best possible flavour, cocktails, sorbet and granita, sauces and desserts

Fresher, brighter and much more aromatic than bottled juice, which is usually pasteurised into something flatter. Strain through a fine sieve or muslin, pressing gently, or the liquid will be cloudy and pulpy. If you use cherries packed in syrup, taste before adding any sweetener and consider a squeeze of lemon, because the syrup has already dulled the sourness.

Not so much a substitute as the same product in a smaller bottle, and worth knowing about because the concentrate is often stocked where the ready-to-drink juice is not.

Best for

when only the concentrate is available, cocktails, where the undiluted concentrate works as a syrup, long storage, controlling strength precisely

Undiluted it is intensely sour and almost inky, so in a cocktail you can use a bar spoon of it in place of an ounce of juice and gain body rather than dilution. Diluted at the ratio above it is essentially identical to the bottled juice. Brands vary in concentration, so check the label and taste; some are twice as strong as others.

A fruit-free option that nonetheless does two of tart cherry juice's three jobs: it is genuinely sour and it stains a brilliant clear red.

Best for

mocktails and spritzes, sorbets and jellies, punches, anyone avoiding fruit sugar

Tastes floral and clean with a tannic finish, and clearly not of cherry, so it reads as a deliberate different drink rather than a substitution nobody notices. The colour is arguably better than the juice, a vivid translucent scarlet. It has no body or sweetness at all, so in a sauce it will not reduce to a glaze and you will need to add sugar for both taste and texture.

A small trick that works better than it sounds. Sour cherry's characteristic depth comes partly from benzaldehyde, the same compound that dominates almond extract.

Best for

baking and desserts, sauces, cocktails where a cherry note is expected, cheap large batches

With one drop it reads convincingly as cherry; with two it tastes of marzipan and cough syrup, so be genuinely stingy. Use a dropper or dip a skewer in the bottle. The acidity and colour come from the cranberry, so the structural behaviour in a sauce or bake is unchanged. This is a flavour illusion, not a nutritional match.