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Ginger Liqueur

A sweet ginger liqueur made by infusing whiskey with sugar, almonds, ginger, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Liqueur

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Dissolve the sugar in boiling water.

  2. In a jar, combine the whiskey, dissolved sugar, almonds, bruised ginger, and lemon rind.

  3. Seal the jar and let it sit for 5 to 6 days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Afterward, filter the mixture 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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Whiskey
Alcohol that extracts and carries the flavours from the almonds, ginger and lemon.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and a smooth, rounded body to the liqueur.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a strong, characteristic almond aroma and flavour.
Sweet almonds
Add a mild, nutty flavour and richness to the infused spirit.
Ginger
Provides warm, pungent aroma and spiciness as its oils infuse into the alcohol.
Lemon rind
Its aromatic oils add bright citrus notes to the finished liqueur.

The step that matters

Seal the jar and let it sit for 5 to 6 days. Infusion time controls how much flavour the alcohol draws from the almonds, ginger and rind. Too short gives a weak liqueur, while extracting for too long can pull out harsher, more bitter notes from the plant materials.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon. 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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