Grab a clean glass beer bottle or a soda bottle—any narrow-mouthed bottle will do. Then, find a sturdy chopstick (the thick, wooden kind, not the flimsy takeout ones).
Place your cherry on the bottle’s mouth, stem-side up. The cherry should sit snugly, like a toddler in a car seat. Now, take your chopstick and push it straight down through the top of the cherry.
Pop! The pit shoots out the bottom and lands inside the bottle with a satisfying clink. It’s like a magic trick, only you don’t have to wear a cape or disappoint your audience.
I once did thirty cherries in two minutes using this method. My husband walked in and asked if I’d been replaced by a robot. No, I replied. Just a chopstick and existential desperation.
Why This Works (And Why Cherries Are Weird)
Cherries are small, but their pits are slippery little devils. The bottle’s rim acts as a fulcrum, keeping the cherry steady while the chopstick forces the pit through the path of least resistance.
Fun fact: cherry pits contain a compound called amygdalin, which can break down into cyanide. Don’t panic—you’d have to eat about 200 crushed pits in one sitting to get sick. Still, maybe don’t make a pit smoothie.
What is an Easy Way to Put Cherries - Hintze Begovere
Also, the world’s largest cherry pit spitting record is over 93 feet. I’m convinced that person used this bottle trick to train. Either way, you’re now prepared for the Olympics of fruit-based projectile sports.
