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Peach Brandy

Peach brandy made by crushing peaches, steeping them in alcohol and water, then adding syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peach Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the peaches

  1. Crush the peaches without peeling them and break the stones.

  2. Place the peaches in a tub or barrel.

  3. Pour 2.5 gallons of 95% alcohol and 2 gallons of water over the peaches.

  4. Cover the tub and let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the liquor, pressing the peaches to extract all the liquid.

  2. Filter the liquid through flannel or filtering paper to clear it.

  3. Add 2.5 pints of white syrup to the filtered liquor.

  4. Bottle the brandy and add a little caramel if a dark color is desired.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Peach + syruptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit flavor and aroma that the spirit takes up during standing.
95% alcohol
Extracts flavor from the peaches and acts as the spirit base of the brandy.
White syrup
Adds sweetness and rounds out the harsh edge of the alcohol.
Caramel
Deepens the color of the finished brandy without changing its main flavor.

The step that matters

Standing the crushed peaches in alcohol and water for 24 hours. Time in the covered tub lets alcohol draw flavor and aroma from the crushed fruit. Covering keeps the alcohol from evaporating and the mixture from picking up outside contaminants.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar. 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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