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Drink

Ginger Cordial

A sweet alcoholic infusion of currants, whiskey, ginger, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine currants, whiskey, and bruised ginger in a stone jar.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 to 36 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a flannel bag.

  2. Add sugar and stir until fully dissolved.

  3. Bottle the cordial.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Currant + gingertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together834 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Currants
Provide fruit flavor, color, and tartness that balance the sweetness.
Whiskey
Extracts flavor from the currants and ginger and acts as a preserving base.
Ginger
Adds warm, sharp aroma and a spicy bite to the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharpness of the fruit and spirit.

The step that matters

Stir the sugar until fully dissolved. Sugar dissolves slowly in a spirit-based liquid. Stirring thoroughly until no crystals remain keeps the cordial smooth and prevents grainy sediment from settling in the bottles.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, 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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