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Blackberry Cordial

A sweet blackberry cordial made with blackberry juice, sugar, cinnamon bark, cloves, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

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 Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash and press the blackberries through a towel to extract the juice.

  2. Weigh 1 pound of sugar for every quart of juice.

Make the cordial

  1. In a copper kettle, combine the sugar and juice.

  2. Add ½ ounce of cinnamon bark and ½ ounce of whole cloves for each quart of liquid.

  3. Heat on a quick fire and boil for 15 to 20 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  4. Let it cool, then add ½ pint of good brandy for each quart of cordial.

  5. Strain through a fine sieve, then bottle and cork well.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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

Blackberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and colour of the cordial.
Sugar
Sweetens the cordial and helps preserve it along with the brandy.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and carries its aroma.

The step that matters

Skimming during the boil. Scum rises as the juice and sugar boil and can cloud the cordial or spoil its flavour, so it should be removed as it forms.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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