Name: Raspberries in Brandy
Ingredients: large ripe raspberries; ½ pound sifted lump sugar; 3 pints French brandy

Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberries in Brandy

Ingredients

large ripe raspberries
½ pound sifted lump sugar
3 pints French brandy

Directions

Place the raspberries in a glass jar.
Add the sifted sugar over the raspberries.
Pour the brandy over the raspberries and sugar until they are fully covered.
Seal the jar tightly with a bottle or lid.

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.

Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy 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

Large ripe raspberries: Provide the fruit, which softens and releases juice as it steeps in the spirit.
Lump sugar: Sweetens the mixture and draws juice out of the fruit, forming a syrup with the brandy.
French brandy: Acts as the preserving liquid, extracting flavour from the fruit and keeping it covered.

“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.