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Raspberry Cordial

A preserved raspberry cordial made by fermenting berries with vinegar, sugar, and boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the fruit

  1. Fill a jar nearly full of raspberries.

  2. Cover them with white wine vinegar and let stand for ten days.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Add 1½ pounds of sugar for each pint of liquid and boil gently for a few minutes.

  3. Cool the mixture and bottle it for use.

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.

  1. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, aroma and colour of the cordial.
White wine vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and draws flavour out of the raspberries during steeping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and gives body to the syrup.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and boiling gently. Sugar must dissolve fully into the hot strained liquid to balance the sharp vinegar. Boiling gently keeps the flavour fresh, while a hard boil can darken the syrup and dull the raspberry aroma.

“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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