Name: Blackberry Cordial
Ingredients: 1 water bucket of blackberries; 1 pint blackberry juice; 1 pound white sugar; ½ ounce powdered cinnamon; ¼ ounce mace; 2 teaspoons cloves; ⅓ cup brandy

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 ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Squeeze the blackberries to extract juice.
In a pot, combine the blackberry juice, sugar, cinnamon, mace, and cloves. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.
Strain the syrup through a thin cloth bag.

Finish and bottle

Add the brandy to each pint of syrup.
Bottle and cork the mixture air-tight.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together362 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together146 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

Blackberry juice: Provides the main fruit flavor and color of the cordial.
White sugar: Sweetens the cordial and, with boiling, thickens it into a syrup.
Brandy: Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and adds warmth.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet spice aroma and flavor.
Cloves: Adds strong, warm spice aroma and flavor.

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against blackberry, sugar, cinnamon, clove, 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.