For the sauce: If your cherries are frozen, thaw them, then pit the cherries, making sure to save any juice that comes out of them. Put the cherries and their juice into a large saucepan.

Add the wine, bread crumbs, and honey. Set the saucepan over medium heat and stir everything together, breaking up the cherries to get as much juice out as possible. Bring it to a simmer and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 20 minutes, mash the cherries with a potato masher, then pass the sauce through a sieve, pressing out as much of the sauce as possible. Don’t use a fine mesh sieve for this as the sauce is already rather thick. Save the cherries and bread crumbs for the pheasant.

Stir the pepper and cinnamon into the sieved sauce.

Put the sauce back in the saucepan and heat it just until it’s steaming. Taste it and add more honey, pepper, or cinnamon if you’d like. Cook on low for about 5 minutes, or until it thickens up enough to leave a trail at the bottom of the pan when you run a spatula through it.

For the pheasant: Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C).

Rub the salt all over the pheasant and sprinkle a little inside the cavity.

Divide the reserved cooked cherries up so that you have enough to stuff the pheasant with, and save the rest for serving. Stuff the cavity with the cherries, then truss the legs.

Brush the pheasant all over with the olive oil or clarified butter.

Chop the onion into eighths, then place them around the pheasant.

Sprinkle the pheasant with a little more salt and some pepper, if desired.

Roast the pheasant at 450°F (230°C) for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350°F (175°C) and cook for another 25 to 30 minutes, or until reaches an internal temperature of 155°F (70°C) at the thickest part of the breast. Take the pheasant out and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.

To serve: Plate the pheasant with the onions, the rest of the cooked cherries, and some fresh cherries if you have them along with the sour cherry sauce.