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Ratafia of Cherries

A cherry liqueur made by steeping wild and Morello cherries with spices, brandy, berries, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Ratafia of Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and pit the wild and Morello cherries.

  2. Combine the cherries, cinnamon, mace, brandy, strawberries, and raspberries in a large container.

Steep and strain

  1. Allow the mixture to steep for several weeks to infuse the flavors.

  2. After steeping, strain the mixture to remove solids.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Add sugar to taste, then filter the liqueur again.

  2. Bottle the finished ratafia and seal.

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. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Mace + brandytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,547 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Wild cherries
Provide the main cherry flavour and colour for the liqueur.
Morello cherries
Add tart acidity and deep fruit flavour that balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Extracts flavour from the fruit and acts as the preserving alcohol.
Strawberries
Add soft fruity sweetness and aroma to the infusion.
Raspberries
Add bright berry aroma and a fresh fruity note.

The step that matters

Steeping the fruit in brandy. Steeping for the full several weeks lets alcohol slowly draw flavour and colour out of the fruit. Stopping early leaves the liqueur weak in flavour and pale in colour.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, brandy. 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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