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Peppermint

A peppermint liqueur made by infusing peppermint, sage, cinnamon, orris root, and ginger in alcohol and sweetening with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peppermint

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Combine peppermint, sage, cinnamon, orris root, and ginger in a large container.

  2. Add 80% alcohol to the mixture.

Sweeten and rest

  1. Stir in white sugar until fully dissolved.

  2. Allow the mixture to sit until it reaches 10 liters of liquor.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Peppermint + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Peppermint + sagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peppermint + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together338 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sage + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Peppermint
Supplies the main minty flavour and aroma that defines the liqueur.
80% alcohol
Extracts flavour compounds from the herbs and spices and preserves the liquid.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and a smoother, rounder body to the finished liqueur.
Sage
Contributes an earthy, herbal note that adds depth to the mint.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma and background flavour.
Orris root
Adds a subtle floral aroma and helps the scent last.

The step that matters

Stir in white sugar until fully dissolved. Undissolved sugar settles to the bottom, leaving the liqueur uneven in sweetness and possibly cloudy or grainy. Fully dissolving it in the alcohol base gives a clear, consistent result.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peppermint, cinnamon, ginger, sugar. 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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