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Blackberry Syrup

A sweet syrup made from blackberries, water, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Simmer blackberries in water until soft enough to extract juice.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve to collect the juice.

  3. In a pot, bring the juice to a boil and skim off any foam.

Make the syrup

  1. Add sugar to the boiling juice and stir until melted.

  2. Stir occasionally until the mixture cools.

  3. Once cold, add brandy to the syrup.

  4. Bottle and cork tightly.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Blackberries
Provide the flavor and color, and their juice forms the base of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and thickens it into a syrup as it dissolves.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and helps keep the syrup stable once added.

The step that matters

Add sugar to the boiling juice. Sugar must dissolve fully into the hot juice; undissolved crystals can recrystallize later and make the syrup grainy. Stirring until melted ensures an even, stable syrup.

“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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