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SpiriluGus Sijrup of Tea

An alcoholic tea steeped in brandy for ten days, sweetened with clarified syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and brandy work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 121 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

SpiriluGus Sijrup of Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the tea

  1. Pour water over the tea and let it stand for 1 hour.

  2. Add brandy or proof spirit and steep for 10 days, shaking daily.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Strain the mixture and sweeten with strong clarified syrup.

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. Tea + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together121 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + syruptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together561 recipes
  3. Tea + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine young hyson tea
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the drink.
Brandy or proof spirit
Draws flavour and aroma out of the tea over the long steep.
Strong clarified syrup
Sweetens the finished drink to taste.

The step that matters

Steep for the full 10 days, shaking daily. Alcohol pulls flavour compounds from tea slowly, so stopping early leaves the drink weak. Shaking moves fresh liquid across the leaves, speeding even extraction. Straining too soon wastes the flavour that would have built up.

“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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