Name: Ginger Cordial
Ingredients: 2 pounds white or black currants; 1.5 ounces ground ginger; 1 quart good whisky or brandy; 1 pound loaf sugar; ⅓ cup water

Why it works: Black currant and ginger share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pick and slightly bruise the currants.
Mix the currants with ground ginger.
Pour whisky or brandy over the mixture and let it stand for 2 days.
Strain off the liquid.

Sweeten and bottle

Boil sugar with water to make a syrup.
Add the syrup to the strained liquid.
Bottle and cork closely for 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.

Black currant + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Black currant + whiskytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

Ginger and sugar 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

White or black currants: Provide the fruit flavour and tartness that the spirit extracts over the two days.
Ground ginger: Adds warm, pungent aroma and spice that infuses into the spirit.
Whisky or brandy: Acts as the solvent, drawing flavour out of the currants and ginger and preserving the liquid.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the currants and the heat of the spirit.