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Cherry Cordial

A sweet cherry liqueur made by steeping cherries, dissolving sugar in the juice, adding brandy, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cherry and brandy work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 300 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cherry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Stone the cherries and refrigerate overnight.

  2. Strain the cherries to obtain the juice.

Make and bottle the cordial

  1. In a bowl, combine the cherry juice and sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Add the brandy and strain the mixture again.

  3. Bottle and seal the cordial.

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. Cherry + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Coarse granulated sugar
Dissolves into the juice to provide sweetness and a syrupy body.
Cherry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor, color and acidity of the cordial.
California brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and carries its aroma.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully in the cherry juice. Sugar that stays undissolved leaves grains in the cordial and makes sweetness uneven. Stirring until clear ensures a smooth, evenly sweet liquid before the brandy is added.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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