Preserving fruits in alcohol

At Christmas time I often buy cherries in alcohol and my do they cost a lot even on the buy 3 for 2 offers. So I decided to make my own. I couldn't find many recipes on the Internet or in my many cookbooks so decided to go with a basic 1/3 jar sugar and top up with brandy.
I bought Basics cherries from Sainsbury's @ £1 a punnet and a punnet of basics apricots @ £1.40 together with a bottle of Sainsbury's own label brandy.
This made 4 jars of cherries in brandy and 1 large jar of the apricots. Cherries-I left whole although I did prick them. Some recipes say to prick them some don't mention it. I reckoned on the brandy soaking into the cherries if I pricked them. We'll see in a few months time. The apricots I cut in half and removed the stone, this way they packed in the jar better and recipes I found for plums did this. I also used vanilla sugar for the apricots rather than the plain caster for the cherries.
Once sealed they needed shaking to start dissolving the sugar. I shall be storing them in the cupboard for a couple of months before tasting and will need to remember to give them a shake every now and then.