Name: Blackberry Cordial
Ingredients: 1 pound granulated sugar; 1 quart blackberry juice; ¼ ounce whole cinnamon; ¼ ounce allspice; ¼ ounce whole cloves; ¼ ounce pounded nutmeg; ½ pint brandy

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

Mash the blackberries and squeeze them through a cloth to obtain the juice.

Simmer the cordial

Combine the blackberry juice and sugar in a pot.
Add the whole cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and pounded nutmeg.
Boil the mixture over gentle heat for 2 hours.
Strain the cordial through a fine cloth or sieve.

Finish and bottle

Stir in the brandy, then bottle and cork 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar: Sweetens the cordial and helps preserve it by binding water.
Blackberry juice: Provides the main fruit flavour and colour of the cordial.
Brandy: Adds alcohol that helps keep the finished cordial stable.
Whole cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced cordial.
Whole cloves: Adds pungent, warm aroma to the spiced cordial.

Swap the blackberry

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg, brandy. 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.