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Drink

Blackberry Branbt

A spirit made by mixing blackberry juice, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Blackberry and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Branbt

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine equal quantities of blackberry juice and brandy in a large bottle.

  2. Add 1 pound of loaf sugar for every gallon of liquid.

  3. Alternatively, dissolve 1 gallon of blackberries in 1 gallon of deodorized pure spirits.

  4. Mix well until the sugar is fully dissolved.

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. Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Blackberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Blackberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor and color, and most of the liquid base.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that preserves the mixture and carries the fruit aroma.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the liquor and softens its sharp alcohol taste.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully. Sugar that stays undissolved settles on the bottom and leaves the mixture unevenly sweet. Mixing until clear helps it blend evenly through the alcohol.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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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