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Ginger Cordial

A cordial made by steeping currants and ginger in whisky, then sweetening with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Whisky and ginger work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Ginger Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

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

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

Strain, sweeten 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. Whisky + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Currant + whiskytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  4. Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 the main fruit flavour, colour and a tart edge to the cordial.
Whisky
Extracts flavour from the fruit and ginger and helps keep the cordial stable.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth and a gentle spicy bite.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the currants.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully. Sugar must dissolve completely in the spirit-based liquid. Undissolved sugar settles at the bottom, so the cordial ends up unevenly sweet and can crystallise in the bottle.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whisky, 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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