Why it works: Peach and whisky work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Peach Cordial
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pare the peaches and remove the stones.
Crack half of the stones and save the kernels.
Leave the rest of the stones whole.
Steep
Mix the cut peaches, whole stones, and kernels in a wide-mouthed demijohn.
Pour 2 gallons of whisky over the mixture.
Add ½ cup of rock-sugar candy.
Cork tightly and set aside for 3 months.
Bottle and clarify
After 3 months, bottle the cordial.
To improve clarity, strain through a sieve lined with blotting paper.
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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Peach + whiskytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + whiskytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,008 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cling-stone peaches
- Provide the main fruit flavor and aroma that infuse into the spirit.
- Double-rectified whisky
- Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor from the fruit and stones over time.
- Rock-sugar candy
- Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the spirit.
The step that matters
Cork tightly and set aside for 3 months. A tight seal keeps alcohol and aromatics from evaporating and stops air or contaminants from entering during the long steep. Sealing well lets extraction proceed steadily so the cordial develops full flavor.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, whisky):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits better
- Figfits better
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, whisky. 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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