Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Wine, Apricot
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the must
Boil 10 gallons of river water for 30 minutes, then cool in a clean vessel.
Cut 45 pounds of ripe apricots into thick slices and add them with their juice to the water, along with 25 pounds of loaf sugar.
Stir well and cover tightly.
Let sit overnight.
Boil the fruit and liquid together.
Stir in the beaten egg whites.
Skim off any scum that rises.
Press and strain through a fine sieve into a cooler.
Add the apricot kernels and stir well.
Ferment
Spread good yeast on both sides of a slice of toast.
Add the toast.
Let it work for 2 days.
Strain the mixture through a jelly bag into a cask.
Lightly put on the bung.
Let it ferment, keeping the cask full.
Add 2 quarts of French brandy and 2 ounces of white sugar-candy.
Secure the bung tightly.
Age and bottle
Store the liquor for 12 months, then bottle it.
Let it age for a year or more, as apricot wine improves with age.
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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Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together513 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,340 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
-
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Apricots
- Provide the fruit flavour, aroma and the sugar-rich juice that ferments into wine.
- Loaf sugar
- Feeds the yeast, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
- Whites of eggs
- When boiled and skimmed, they gather impurities and cloud particles, helping clarify the liquor.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugars in the fruit must into alcohol during fermentation.
- French brandy
- Adds alcohol strength and warmth, stopping the wine from becoming too sweet.
The step that matters
Keep the cask full during fermentation. Keeping the cask topped up limits contact with air, reducing the risk of spoilage by unwanted microbes and oxidation while fermentation proceeds.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Apricotthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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