Name: Strawberries in Brandy
Ingredients: candied strawberries; ⅔ cup double proof spirit; ⅓ cup syrup at 32°; ⅓ cup water

Why it works: Spirit and syrup work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 141 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberries in Brandy

Ingredients

candied strawberries
⅔ cup double proof spirit
⅓ cup syrup at 32°
⅓ cup water

Directions

Prepare

Soak candied strawberries in cold water for 10 minutes to melt the sugar coating.

Bottle

Bottle the strawberries and fill with ⅔ cup double proof spirit and ⅓ cup syrup.
For a second method, place strawberries in a small barrel, cover with ⅔ cup double proof spirit and ⅓ cup water.
After 40 days, bottle the berries, covering them with the liquor mixture of ⅔ cup infusion spirit, ⅓ cup syrup, and ⅓ cup water.

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.

Spirit + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together141 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Candied strawberries: Provide the fruit flavour and texture that the spirit and syrup soak into.
Double proof spirit: Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the fruit flavour.
Syrup: Adds sweetness to balance the strong alcohol.

“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.