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Blackberry Brandy

A brandy made by boiling blackberries with sugar, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the blackberries and squeeze out the juice through a bag.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the sugar with the juice and melt it.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a thin jelly consistency.

  3. While boiling, add cloves, allspice, mace, and cinnamon to taste.

Finish and bottle

  1. Once cooled, mix in the brandy and stir well.

  2. Bottle the mixture for storage.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when boiled with the juice, thickens the mixture toward a jelly-like consistency.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that preserves the mixture and contributes a warm, spirited flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling to a thin jelly consistency. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit juice as water evaporates, and the mixture thickens as it cools. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can make it too stiff or cause the sugar to crystallise.

Swap the mace

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

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

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