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Drink

To Make Aniseed Cordial

Aniseed cordial is a sweet alcoholic beverage made by infusing aniseed, fennel, and coriander in spirits, then distilling and sweetening with sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 426 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Make Aniseed Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spirit

  1. Combine bruised aniseed, fennel seeds, and coriander seeds in a closed vessel with rectified spirits and water.

  2. Let the mixture digest for a week.

  3. Distill off 6 quarts of the mixture.

Finish the cordial

  1. Dissolve sugar in 3 quarts of water to make syrup.

  2. Add the syrup to the distilled liquid.

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. Fennel + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Coriander + spirittop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Fennel + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together408 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  5. Fennel + spirittop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Aniseed
Provides the main anise flavour and aroma.
Fennel seeds
Adds a sweet, licorice-like aroma that supports the aniseed.
Coriander seeds
Contributes a citrusy, floral aroma to the spirit.
Sugar
Sweetens the cordial and gives it body.

The step that matters

Distill off 6 quarts of the mixture. Distillation separates the flavour and aroma compounds from the seeds into the spirit. Stopping at the right volume controls how concentrated the flavour is, and the syrup must then be added to the distilled liquid so the sugar dissolves evenly.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fennel, spirit, 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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