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Mint Cordial

A mint-infused cordial made by steeping mint in brandy, water, and powdered sugar over three days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mint Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mint

  1. Pick the mint early in the morning while the dew is on it, being careful not to bruise it.

  2. Pour water over the mint and drain it.

Infuse the brandy

  1. Place 2 handfuls of mint in a pitcher with 1 quart of French brandy, cover, and let it stand overnight.

  2. Remove the mint and add more fresh mint, repeating this process for a total of three days.

Finish and bottle

  1. After the third day, add 3 quarts of water and 1 pound of powdered sugar to the brandy, mixing well.

  2. Once clear, bottle the mixture.

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.

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. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  2. Mint + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Fresh mint
Supplies the main aroma and flavor, which builds as fresh mint is repeatedly steeped in the brandy.
French brandy
Extracts the mint's aromatic oils and acts as the base spirit that preserves the cordial.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and body to balance the strong alcohol and mint flavor.

The step that matters

Handling the mint before steeping. Bruising mint releases bitter, grassy compounds from torn leaf tissue, so the mint should be picked and handled gently to keep the cordial clean-tasting.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. 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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