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Mint Syrup

A syrup made by macerating peppermint in alcohol and water, then mixing with a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peppermint and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,082 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mint Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the extract

  1. Wash the peppermint and twist it into short pieces without bruising.

  2. Combine the broken mint with 2 pints of alcohol and 3 pints of distilled water.

  3. Let the mixture macerate for 5 to 10 days, then filter it.

Make the syrup

  1. In a separate pot, make a syrup by boiling 14 pounds of sugar in 1 gallon of water.

  2. Filter the syrup and add 1 quart of the mint extract.

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. Peppermint + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh peppermint
Supplies the mint oils that give the syrup its flavour.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and body, making the syrup thick and preserving it.
Alcohol
Draws flavour compounds out of the mint during maceration and helps keep the extract stable.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture macerate. Mint flavour comes out of the leaves slowly in alcohol and water. Stopping before the 5 to 10 days are up leaves the extract weak, while the mint is a flavour source that must be fully steeped before filtering.

“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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