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Black Currant Cordial

A homemade black currant cordial made by macerating currants in whisky, then sweetening with sugar and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Black Currant Cordial

Why it works: Black currant and clove share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 40 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Black Currant Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine black currants and whisky in a jar.

  2. Let it sit for four months, shaking occasionally.

Finish and bottle

  1. Drain and strain the mixture.

  2. Add loaf sugar and bruised cloves, stirring until dissolved.

  3. Bottle and seal the cordial.

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.

  1. Black currant + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Black currant + whiskytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Whisky + clovetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

  5. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour that the whisky draws out over time.
Whisky
Extracts flavour and colour from the currants and preserves the infused liquid.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cordial and balances the sharpness of the currants and spirit.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cordial.

The step that matters

Letting the currants infuse for four months. Flavour and colour extract slowly from the fruit into the spirit, so cutting the infusion short leaves a weak, pale cordial. Shaking helps keep the fruit in contact with the liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (black currant, whisky, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against black currant, whisky, sugar. 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.

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