Skip to main content
Drink

Blackberry Cordial

A sweet blackberry cordial made by boiling berries, straining, sweetening, and adding brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Blackberry Cordial

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 juice

  1. Wash the berries and boil for a few minutes.

  2. When cool, press the juice out and strain.

Sweeten, spice and finish

  1. To 1 pint of juice, add ½ pound of crushed sugar; use more sugar if the berries are very acidic.

  2. Boil for about 5 minutes with cloves and cinnamon tied in a bag, using more cinnamon than cloves.

  3. Skim, strain, and add 1 pint of brandy to 4 pints of juice.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

What each ingredient does

Berries
Provide the main juice, colour and fruity flavour of the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the berries' natural tartness.
Brandy
Adds spirit strength and helps keep the cordial from spoiling.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the juice.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that blends with the fruit.

The step that matters

Sweetening the juice. Sugar must be judged against the berries' acidity. Acid makes the juice taste sharp, and sugar softens that sharpness. Very tart berries need more sugar, so the balance should be tasted rather than fixed by the amount alone.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

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

You might also like

Cinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes