Why it works: Brandy and honey work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Made Wines
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the fruit, sugar, and water to make the wine soft and mellow.
Allow the mixture to cool, then add yeast and let it ferment.
Clear away the yeast as it rises and fill up with reserved wine.
When fermentation subsides, mix 1 quart of brandy with 1 pound of honey and pour into the cask.
Seal the bung-hole with stiff brown paper, ensuring no vent peg is used.
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.
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Brandy + honeytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together169 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,932 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
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