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Drink

Ratafia of Black Currants

A liqueur made by steeping black currants, black currant leaves, Morello cherries, and cloves in brandy with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and clove share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 40 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ratafia of Black Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Combine black currants, black currant leaves, Morello cherries, and cloves in a jar.

  2. Add brandy and sugar, stirring until sugar dissolves.

  3. Seal the jar and let it steep for a month.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth and bottle the liqueur.

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. Black currant + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Black currant + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Black currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and tartness that define the liqueur.
Black currant leaves
Add a green, aromatic note characteristic of black currant flavour.
Morello cherries
Contribute tart, deep fruit flavour and colour to the infusion.
Brandy
Extracts and carries fruit and spice flavours while preserving the liqueur.
Sugar
Balances the tartness of the fruit and gives the liqueur its sweetness.

The step that matters

Let it steep for a month. Flavour comes from slow extraction of fruit and spice compounds into the alcohol over time. Stopping early leaves the liqueur weak and unbalanced, so the jar must stay sealed for the full period.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (black currant, brandy, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against black currant, brandy, 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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