Name: Ratafia Nf Cherries
Ingredients: 8 pounds Morello cherries; 8 pounds black cherries; 2 pounds raspberries; 2 pounds red or white currants; 3 ounces coriander seeds; ½ ounce cinnamon; ½ ounce mace; 1 gallon proof spirit; 2.5 pounds sugar

Why it works: Coriander and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,635 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ratafia Nf Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Press out the juice from the fruit.
Take half of the stones from the cherries and pound them with the spices.

Steep and filter

Add the sugar and steep for a month.
Filter the mixture.

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.

Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,635 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon + spirittop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Coriander + macetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together281 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharp, tannic flavour of the fruit and stones.
Proof spirit: Extracts flavour from the fruit and spices during steeping and helps preserve the liquid.
Morello cherries: Provide the main tart cherry juice that forms the body of the drink.
Black cherries: Add deeper cherry flavour and colour to the juice.
Coriander seeds: Contribute warm, citrusy aromatic notes to the steeped liquor.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the fruit flavours.

Swap the white currant

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

Limefits better
Orangefits better
Lemonfits better
White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, cinnamon, mace, 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.