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Drink

Peach Cordial

A preserved peach liqueur made by steeping peaches in brandy and sweetening with sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the peaches

  1. Cut peaches to the stone in several places.

  2. Fill jars or casks with the cut peaches.

  3. Cover peaches with peach brandy.

  4. Let them sit for 8 weeks.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water until dissolved.

  2. Let the syrup cool.

  3. Mix ½ syrup with ½ brandy.

  4. Bottle or keep the mixture in the cask.

Finish and bottle

  1. Cut up the kernels.

  2. Pour brandy over the sugar to melt it.

  3. Lightly sprinkle sugar with water to help dissolve it.

  4. Simmer the mixture over low heat for one hour with the kernels.

  5. Let it settle for 3-4 days.

  6. Pour off the clear liquid and bottle it.

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. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

White heath or cling stone peaches
Provides the main peach flavour as the fruit steeps in the spirit.
Peach brandy
Extracts flavour from the fruit and acts as the liquid base of the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong alcohol.
Peach kernels or blanched almonds
Add a nutty, almond-like aroma when simmered in the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool before mixing it with brandy. Adding brandy to hot syrup can drive off alcohol and volatile aromas, weakening the peach flavour. Cooling the syrup first keeps the spirit and fruit character intact.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe 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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