Name: Blackberry Cordial
Ingredients: 1 pint blackberry juice; 1 pound sugar; 2 ounces ground cinnamon; ½ ounce ground mace; 2 teaspoons ground cloves; ¾ cup brandy (optional)

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 juice

Heat and squeeze blackberries to extract juice.

Cook the cordial

Combine blackberry juice, sugar, cinnamon, mace, and cloves in a pot.
Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.
Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Finish and serve

Add ¾ cup brandy per pint of cordial if desired.
Serve as a soothing drink for children when teething, omitting the brandy.

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).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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).
Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together146 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: Forms the fruity liquid base that carries the flavor of the cordial.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and body to the liquid as it dissolves and cooks.
Ground cinnamon: Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the cordial.
Ground mace: Adds a warm, delicate spice aroma that complements the fruit.
Ground cloves: Adds a strong, warm spice aroma in small amounts.

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

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