Why it works: Rum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cherry Bounce
Ingredients
Directions
Steep the cherries
Fill a 10-gallon keg half full with new rum and add fresh black rum cherries until full. Seal tightly.
Let it stand until spring, then drain off the juice and remove the cherries.
Add sugar and water
Soak the cherries in 2 gallons of water overnight.
Add 2 pounds of loaf sugar for every gallon of juice and return it to the keg.
Wash the cherries and strain the water into the keg. Seal tightly.
Age and bottle
Let it stand until fall, then bottle.
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.
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Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,908 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Black rum cherries
- Release their fruit flavour, colour and juice into the spirit as they steep.
- New rum
- Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour and colour from the cherries.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the rum's alcohol and the cherries' tartness.
- Water
- Dilutes the soaked cherry liquor and helps draw out remaining sweetness and flavour.
The step that matters
Sealing the keg tightly during steeping. Alcohol and flavour compounds evaporate and oxidise readily, and a loose seal lets the spirit lose aroma and pick up off-flavours over the long steep.
“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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