Name: Gooseberry Liqueur
Ingredients: 5 quarts ripe gooseberries; ¼ pound bitter almonds, chopped; ¼ pound sweet almonds, chopped; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground mace; 6 pounds lump sugar; 2 gallons gin, whisky, or brandy

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Gooseberry Liqueur

Ingredients

5 quarts ripe gooseberries
¼ pound bitter almonds, chopped
¼ pound sweet almonds, chopped
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground mace
6 pounds lump sugar
2 gallons gin, whisky, or brandy

Directions

Prepare

Braise the gooseberries until soft.
Blanch and chop the bitter and sweet almonds.
Bruise the cinnamon and mace, then add to the gooseberries.
Dissolve the sugar in the gin, whisky, or brandy.

Steep and bottle

Combine all ingredients and let sit for 2 to 3 months.
Strain 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.

Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together344 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gooseberries: Provide the main fruit flavour and body once braised soft and steeped.
Lump sugar: Dissolves into the spirit to add sweetness and balance the tartness of the fruit.
Gin, whisky, or brandy: Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the fruit and almond flavours.
Bitter almonds: Contribute a characteristic nutty, almond aroma to the liqueur.
Sweet almonds: Add a mild, nutty flavour and some richness to the liqueur.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, cinnamon, sugar, gin):

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cinnamon, sugar, gin. 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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Gooseberry Liqueur