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 ↓
Cheeey Brandy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Place the black cherries in a jar to draw out the juice.
Strain the cherries when tender, leaving behind the skins and kernels.
For every quart of juice, add 3 pints of brandy and ¾ pound of sugar.
Make the syrup
Make a syrup by boiling the sugar with ½ cup of water, then skim and cool it.
Combine the syrup with the brandy and juice, and shake well.
Infuse and bottle
Crack the kernels and add them to the mixture along with the cinnamon, cloves, and mace.
Let the mixture infuse for 6 weeks to 2 months, shaking occasionally.
Strain and filter the mixture, then bottle for use.
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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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,199 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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
- Black cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and colour, released as juice during the initial soak.
- Brandy
- Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the flavours over the long infusion.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the liqueur and balances the sharpness of the cherry juice and brandy.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm, sweet spice aroma that infuses into the liqueur.
- Cloves
- Contribute a pungent, warm spice aroma to the infused liqueur.
The step that matters
Straining and filtering before bottling. Skins, kernels and spices left in the liquid keep extracting bitterness and cloudiness over time, so the mixture should be strained and filtered clear before it is bottled.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, cinnamon, clove):
- Nutmegfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, cinnamon, 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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