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Blackberry Cokdial

A blackberry cordial made by boiling berries with sugar and spices, then adding alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Cokdial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Combine blackberries, water, sugar, and spices in a pot.

  2. Boil for about 3 hours.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and bottle

  1. For every quart of juice, add ½ pint of alcohol.

  2. Mix well, then bottle and cork.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main fruit flavor, color, and juice for the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the blackberries.
Alcohol
Acts as a preservative and carries the spice and fruit flavors.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and spice flavor.
Allspice
Adds a blended warm spice aroma alongside the cloves and cinnamon.

The step that matters

Add the alcohol by the quart of juice. The alcohol should be measured against the strained juice, not the original fruit, so the ratio is right. Mixing it in well keeps the cordial evenly balanced, so the flavor and preservation are consistent throughout the bottle.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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