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Ginger Cordial

A fruit cordial made with currants, ginger, bitter almonds, lemon, whiskey, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Combine currants, bruised ginger, bitter almonds, lemon juice, and lemon rind in a large container.

  2. Pour in the whiskey and let the mixture stand for 10 days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture twice to remove solids.

  2. Add white sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Bottle the cordial for use.

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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 fruit flavour and body that the cordial is built on.
Ginger
Adds a sharp, warm aroma and spice to the infused liquid.
Whiskey
Extracts flavour from the fruit and ginger and preserves the cordial.
White sugar
Sweetens the cordial and balances the sharpness of the lemon and fruit.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, almond, 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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