Name: Another Ratafia of Cherries
Ingredients: 15 pints Morello cherry juice; 1 pound peach leaves; 14 pints brandy; 3 teaspoons cinnamon; 1 teaspoon cloves; 8 pounds sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Another Ratafia of Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

Crush and strain the pulp of the cherries through a sieve.
Pound the stones and combine them with the cherry pulp in a pan.
Heat the mixture and bring it to a boil, then let it cool.
Measure the juice; when you have 15 pints, add the peach leaves, cinnamon, and cloves.

Steep and bottle

Add the sugar and brandy, then transfer everything to a jar.
Let it steep for a month, then draw it off 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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cherry + peachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together177 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cherry + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together551 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cherry + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together474 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Morello cherry juice: Provides the main fruit flavour, colour and tartness of the ratafia.
Brandy: Acts as the alcohol base that extracts and preserves the flavours during steeping.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the cherry juice.
Peach leaves: Contribute a subtle almond-like aroma to the infused liquid.

Swap the cherry

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Pearfits better
Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, brandy, cinnamon, clove, 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.