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Ginger Cobdial

A whiskey-based liqueur made with currants, ginger, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Ginger Cobdial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Extract the juice from the currants.

  2. Add the green ginger and sliced lemons to the juice.

  3. Pour in the whiskey and transfer to an earthen jar.

  4. Cover with muslin and a plate.

Steep

  1. Let it stand for three weeks, stirring occasionally.

  2. Strain the mixture twice.

Sweeten

  1. Add the granulated sugar.

  2. Stir until dissolved, which takes about three days.

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

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  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 juice, giving the liqueur its colour and tart fruit flavour.
Whiskey
Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the flavours during steeping.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the currants and lemons.
Green ginger
Contributes a warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the infused liqueur.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir until dissolved. Sugar must fully dissolve into the alcohol-rich liquid; undissolved crystals can settle and leave the liqueur gritty and unevenly sweet.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, lemon, 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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