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Ginger Cordial

A sweet alcoholic cordial made with ginger, currants, whisky or brandy, and loaf sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and whisky 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

Steep

  1. Combine ground ginger and bruised currants in a container and cover it tightly.

  2. Let it sit for 24 hours.

  3. Pour 1 quart of whisky or brandy over the mixture.

Strain, sweeten and bottle

  1. Strain through a linen cloth.

  2. Add 1 lb. of loaf sugar and mix until 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. Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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

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

  4. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes
  5. Ginger + white curranttop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 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

Ground ginger
Provides the main spicy aroma and flavour of the cordial.
White currants
Give tartness and fruity flavour, and release juice into the spirit as they are bruised.
Whisky or brandy
Extracts flavour from the ginger and currants and helps keep the cordial stable.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the currants and the heat of the ginger.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully. Stir the loaf sugar until it has completely dissolved. Undissolved crystals settle at the bottom, so the sweetness becomes uneven and the bottled cordial can taste harsh at the start and sugary at the end.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, whisky, 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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