Name: Blackberry Syrup
Ingredients: 1 pint blackberry juice; 1 lb white sugar; ¼ oz powdered cinnamon; ¼ oz mace; 2 teaspoons cloves; ⅓ cup best French brandy

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

Procure perfectly ripe blackberries and place them in a porcelain-lined kettle over the fire.
Cook until the blackberries break apart, then strain the mixture through a flannel bag.

Make the syrup

Boil the strained juice with all ingredients except the brandy for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Strain the mixture again and add the brandy.
Bottle and seal tightly, then keep in a cool place.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together362 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together146 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blackberry juice: Provides the main fruit flavour and colour of the syrup.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the syrup.
Cloves: Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Powdered cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet spice aroma.
Mace: Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the spice blend.
French brandy: Adds alcohol that helps preserve the syrup and gives a warm finish.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (blackberry, sugar, cinnamon, clove, brandy):

Nutmegfits better
Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against blackberry, sugar, cinnamon, clove, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.