Skip to main content
Drink

Essence of Myrtle

A fragrant spirit made from myrtle flowers, honey-water, and aromatic herbs, optionally scented with musk and ambergris.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,987 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Essence of Myrtle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine myrtle flowers and water in a gallon container.

  2. Add honey-water, nonpareil water, essence of jasmine, aromatic spirits of cloves, violets, white flag, long cyprus, lavender, and spirit of orange flowers, then mix well until combined.

  3. Optionally, add a few grains of musk and ambergris for fragrance.

  4. This mixture can also be sweetened with sugar to make ratafia.

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. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Honey + spirittop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  3. Honey + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,068 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Spirit + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

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

  5. Spirit + lavendertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Myrtle flowers
Provide the main floral aroma that gives the essence its character.
Honey-water
Adds sweetness and a softer body to the liquid.
Spirit of cloves
Contributes a warm, spicy aroma to the blend.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (myrtle, honey, spirit, lavender, orange):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Mintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against myrtle, honey, spirit, lavender, orange. 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLavender Water (Tincture)Lavender Water (Tincture)28 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes