Name: Ratafia of Orange Flotvers
Ingredients: 3 pints brandy; 2 pints water; 1 pound orange flowers; 1 pound sugar

Why it works: Brandy and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Orange Flotvers

Ingredients

3 pints brandy
2 pints water
1 pound orange flowers
1 pound sugar

Directions

Combine brandy, water, orange flowers, and sugar in a jar and seal it tightly.
Place the jar in a hot water bath for one day.
The next day, filter the mixture and bottle it.

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.

Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

Brandy: Acts as the alcohol base that extracts and preserves the orange flower aroma.
Orange flowers: Provide the main floral aroma and flavor that the liquor takes on during steeping.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and rounds out the bitterness of the botanicals.