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Dewberry Cordial

A sweet dewberry cordial made with dewberry juice, sugar, brandy, mace, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dewberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the juice

  1. In a pot, combine the dewberry juice and loaf sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

Flavour and bottle

  1. Once cool, add the brandy, mace, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Bottle the cordial and cork it tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Brandy + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dewberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and liquid base of the cordial.
Loaf sugar
Dissolves into the juice to add sweetness and body.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that carries aroma and helps keep the cordial stable.
Ground mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the finished cordial.
Ground cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.
Ground allspice
Adds warm, sweet-spicy aroma that blends with the other spices.

The step that matters

Add the brandy only after the mixture has cooled. Alcohol and delicate aroma compounds evaporate quickly when hot, so adding brandy to a boiling mixture would lose much of its character and strength.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, clove, allspice. 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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