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Quince Liqueur

A sweet liqueur made by macerating quince with sugar and alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and brandy work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Liqueur

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Wash and dry the quinces, core them, but do not peel.

  2. Grate the quinces on a coarse grater.

  3. Spread the grated fruit on a large dish and sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.

  4. Let it sit for 24 hours.

Make the liqueur

  1. Strain the mixture through a hair sieve over a basin until the juice is clear.

  2. Measure the juice; for each pint, add ½ pound of refined sugar and 1 pint of brandy or whiskey.

  3. Let the liqueur stand for 2 weeks, shaking it daily.

  4. Bottle 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.

  1. Quince + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Quinces
Provide the fruit flavour and the pectin and juice that form the liqueur's base.
Powdered sugar
Draws juice out of the grated fruit and begins sweetening it.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the strained juice and balances its tartness.
Brandy or whiskey
Acts as the spirit that preserves the liqueur and carries its aroma.

The step that matters

Straining until the juice is clear. Straining slowly through a fine sieve removes pulp and solids, so the finished liqueur stays clear and does not become cloudy or gritty during standing.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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