Skip to main content
Drink

Ratafia De Raisin Muscat

A fortified grape liqueur made by infusing muscat grapes with brandy, sugar, mace, cinnamon, and clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ratafia De Raisin Muscat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Crush the muscat grapes in a bowl to extract as much juice as possible.

  2. Strain the juice and mix it with the brandy.

Infuse

  1. Add the sugar, mace, cinnamon, and clove.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a well-sealed jug and let it infuse for five to six days, stirring daily.

  3. Once clear, strain the liquid and bottle it in well-sealed bottles.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Very ripe muscat grapes
Provide the main juice and the grape flavour that forms the base of the drink.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and carries the spice aromas into the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the brandy and the grape acidity.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture to a well-sealed jug and let it infuse. A tight seal keeps air and wild microbes out during the multi-day infusion, and the daily stirring keeps the sugar and spices evenly dissolved. Too little alcohol or a loose seal can let the juice spoil before it clears.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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.

You might also like

Grape FrappeGrape Frappe10 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipes