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Blackberry Cordial

A fruit cordial made by macerating blackberries and huckleberries with spices, whiskey, and sugar, then steeping and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Mash the blackberries and huckleberries together using a potato masher.

  2. Combine the mashed berries with sugar and spices in a 2-gallon wide-mouth jug.

Steep

  1. Pour the whiskey on top of the mixture and mix the contents well with a stick.

  2. Cork the jug tightly.

  3. Place the jug in the sun for 3 weeks, stirring occasionally.

  4. Move the jug to a cool place for 4 weeks.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Bottle 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and natural sweetness for the cordial.
Huckleberries
Add extra fruit flavour and juice that blends into the whiskey base.
Whiskey
Acts as the solvent and preservative, extracting fruit flavour and keeping the cordial stable.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity and alcohol in the cordial.

The step that matters

Keeping the jug tightly corked during the sun steeping. A tight cork limits evaporation of the alcohol and keeps air and contaminants out, so the whiskey stays strong and the fruit ferments and steeps without spoiling over the long infusion.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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