Why it works: Brandy and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cherry Shrub
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Remove the stems from the cherries and place them in an earthen pot.
Set the pot into an iron pot of boiling water, ensuring no water enters the cherries.
Once the juice is extracted, pour it through a thick cloth bag to separate the juice from the pulp.
Sweeten and bottle
Sweeten the juice to your taste and let it become clear.
Pour the juice into bottles, adding ½ cup of brandy to each bottle before sealing.
Cover the corks with rosin and store in a dry, cool place.
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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Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy and sugar 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
What each ingredient does
- Ripe morello cherries
- Provide the main fruit juice that forms the body and sour flavor of the shrub.
- Brandy
- Acts as a preservative spirit that helps keep the bottled juice stable.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the tart cherry juice.
The step that matters
Keep water out of the cherries during the water-bath step. If water leaks into the cherries, it dilutes the juice and its flavor, and the extra moisture can encourage spoilage in the finished shrub. Keeping the earthen pot sealed from the water bath preserves concentration and quality.
“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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