Name: To Brandy Peaches
Ingredients: 1 lb Heath peaches; ¼ lb loaf sugar; 1 pt white brandy

Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Brandy Peaches

Ingredients

1 lb Heath peaches
¼ lb loaf sugar
1 pt white brandy

Directions

Prepare the peaches

Prepare a lye solution with scalding potash and immerse the peaches for a few minutes.
Remove the peaches and rub them clean with a coarse cloth, then place them in cold water.

Make the syrup and cook

Sprinkle some sugar over the peaches to create liquid, then dissolve the remaining sugar in it.
Boil the peaches in the syrup for 45 minutes.
Remove the peaches from the syrup and place them on dishes to cool overnight.

Pack and seal

Combine 1 pt of syrup with 1 pt of white brandy, mix well, and pour over the peaches in jars.
Seal the jars 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.

Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together339 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

Heath peaches: Provide the fruit that is cooked and preserved in the syrup and brandy.
Loaf sugar: Dissolves into the syrup that sweetens the peaches and helps preserve them.
White brandy: Adds alcohol and flavour to the syrup, helping preserve the peaches in the jars.