Name: Cordial, Blackberry
Ingredients: 1 gallon ripe blackberry juice; 2.5 pounds loaf sugar (or 2.75 pounds brown sugar); 1 pint old rye whiskey; a pinch of allspice, mace, and cloves (pounded fine); beeswax for sealing

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cordial, Blackberry

Ingredients

1 gallon ripe blackberry juice
2.5 pounds loaf sugar (or 2.75 pounds brown sugar)
1 pint old rye whiskey
a pinch of allspice, mace, and cloves (pounded fine)
beeswax for sealing

Directions

Make the cordial

In a preserve kettle, combine the blackberry juice and sugar.
Cook for 20 minutes.
Five minutes before finishing, add a pinch of allspice, mace, and cloves.
Once cooled, stir in the rye whiskey.

Bottle and seal

Bottle the mixture, cork tightly, and seal with beeswax.
For longer preservation, use 1 quart of whiskey and 3.5 pounds of sugar.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together212 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Blackberry + allspicetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Blackberry juice: Provides the main fruit flavor and liquid base of the cordial.
Sugar: Sweetens the cordial and helps preserve it along with the whiskey.
Rye whiskey: Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and contributes its own flavor.

Swap the mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

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