Name: Blackberry Cordial
Ingredients: ½ gallon blackberry juice; 2 pounds white sugar; several sticks cinnamon; 1 teaspoon cloves; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 pint good old whiskey; 1 pint old apple 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 cordial

Combine blackberry juice, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice in a pot.
Boil for 15-20 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly.
Stir in whiskey and apple brandy.
Shake well and seal in a jug.

Age

Store for several years.

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).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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).

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 flavour and liquid base of the cordial.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the finished cordial.
Whiskey: Adds alcohol that preserves the cordial and carries the spice aroma.
Apple brandy: Adds alcohol for preservation and a mellow apple-fruit note.

Swap the blackberry

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

Applefits better
Vanillafits better
Quincefits better
Blackberrythe original

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