Name: Ohebky Brandy
Ingredients: 8 pounds black maroons; 8 pounds small black cherries; 6 gallons brandy; 2 pounds crushed sugar; 1 quart sack

Why it works: Brandy and sugar 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 ↓

Ohebky Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and combine

Pick and bruise the black maroons and black cherries.
Combine them in a cask with the brandy, crushed sugar, and sack, stirring well.

Steep and bottle

Let the mixture stand for two months.
After two months, draw off the liquid and bottle it.

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.

Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar 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

Black maroons: Bruised fruit releases juice and deep fruit flavour into the brandy.
Small black cherries: Bruised fruit releases juice and adds tart, rich cherry flavour to the spirit.
Brandy: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the fruit and preserves the mixture.
Crushed sugar: Adds sweetness and helps draw juice out of the fruit.
Sack: Adds sweetness and wine-based aroma to the blend.

“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.