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Essence of Ginger

A tincture made by infusing bruised ginger and lemon peel in rectified spirits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Essence of Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Infuse the ginger and lemon peel in the spirits.

  2. Seal the mixture tightly.

  3. Shake it every day.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Spirit + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  3. Ginger + spirittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + brandytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 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

Bruised ginger
Releases its aromatic oils and pungent flavour into the spirit over time.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and oils that lift the spirit's flavour.
Strong rectified spirits (brandy)
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the ginger and peel.

The step that matters

Seal the mixture tightly. A tight seal keeps alcohol from evaporating and stops air or contaminants from entering. Stable alcohol concentration keeps the extraction consistent and the flavour from spoiling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, spirit, brandy):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, spirit, 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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