Why it works: Elderberry and brandy work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Couoii Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Pick the stems off ripe elderberries and press the juice from them.
Boil the juice as you would for jelly.
Strain the juice from the berries.
Add 2 pints of sugar to the juice and boil down to a rich syrup.
When cool, add 1 tablespoon of whiskey or brandy.
Take 1 teaspoon every 2 or 3 hours.
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.
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Elderberry + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Elderberry + sugartop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the elderberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Elderberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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