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Drink

Whiskey Cordial

A chilled cordial made by macerating currants, lemon rind, and ginger in whiskey, then sweetening with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 26 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

5 persons

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: egg, fish, anchovy, salmon, cod, haddock, shrimp

Directions

Prepare and steep

  1. Strip the currants from the stalks.

  2. Put the currants into a large jug.

  3. Add the lemon rind, grated ginger, and whiskey to the jug.

  4. Cover the jug and let it remain covered for 24 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a hair-sieve.

  2. Add the lump sugar to the strained liquid.

  3. Let the cordial stand for 12 hours.

  4. Bottle the cordial and cork it well.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiskey
Forms the alcohol base that draws flavour out of the fruit and spices during steeping.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, parsley, lemon, flour, carrot, mace):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, parsley, lemon, flour, carrot, mace. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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