Name: Raspberry Cordial
Ingredients: 1 quart raspberries; 1 pound loaf sugar; 1 quart double-rectified whisky

Why it works: Sugar and whisky are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,008 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Cordial

Ingredients

1 quart raspberries
1 pound loaf sugar
1 quart double-rectified whisky

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Mash the raspberries.
Sprinkle the sugar over them after slightly crushing them with a rolling pin.
Cover the mixture.
Let the mixture sit overnight.

Extract and blend

Place the mixture in a thin linen bag.
Squeeze out the juice with your hands.
For every pint of juice, mix in 1 quart of double-rectified whisky.

Store

Cork the mixture well.
Store it for a few days before use.

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.

Sugar + whiskytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Raspberries: Provide the main flavour and the juice that forms the cordial's base.
Loaf sugar: Draws juice out of the crushed fruit and adds sweetness to balance the tartness.
Double-rectified whisky: Acts as a preservative and extracts aroma from the fruit.

“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.