Pour out the juice from the maraschino cherries (you can save it to use as grenadine), keeping the cherries in the jar.
Fill up the cherry jar with your alcohol of choice. Soak at minimum overnight in the refrigerator.
Remove the cherries from the jar and let air dry on paper towels as you prepare your ingredients.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 25-second bursts until completely melted. Pour the sprinkles into a shallow bowl.
Pat the cherries dry with paper towel if they are too wet before proceeding.
Dip the cherries into the melted candy coating and then dip halfway into the sprinkles.
Set the dipped cherries on your parchment paper and allow to dry.
Video
Notes
*I ended up purchasing two jars of maraschino cherries for this recipe instead of 1 - 10 oz jar. If you're lucky, all your cherries will have stems and you may not need to do so. But to be safe, it wouldn't hurt to grab two in case. Otherwise, you can use a toothpick for the cherries that have lost stems.
These cherries can be quite strong for some. If you would rather them be a little more mild in taste, I would suggest filling the cherry jar with half alcohol and half maraschino cherry juice instead of soaking them entirely in alcohol.
Allow your cherries to soak at a minimum 6-8 hours or overnight in the refrigerator. You want the cherries to soak up as much of that alcohol as possible. Do note that the longer you let them soak, the stronger they will be. I have not tested soaking them for longer than 4 days, however, you can certainly do so as they will only soak up the alcohol to an extent (plus, alcohol works as a preservative).
Store chocolate-covered spiked cherries in an airtight container kept in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. These cherries can be enjoyed at room temperature as well, allowing them to sit at room temperature for a few hours will be fine, but if you prepped them in advance or are saving leftovers, I would suggest refrigerating them.
You can soak the cherries in advance, however, I would only recommend coating them in chocolate and sprinkles either the day of the event or the night before. This way the chocolate doesn't sweat too much in the fridge.
It's important that your cherries are dry before dipping them in chocolate. Any excessive moisture will cause the chocolate to slip right off. When removing the cherries from the jar, place them on a paper towel-lined plate and gently pat them dry. Allow them to sit while you prep your ingredients and you shouldn't have a problem with the chocolate slipping off.