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Drink

Ratafia Without Sugar or Syrup

A homemade cherry and apricot kernel liqueur made without added sugar or syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ratafia Without Sugar or Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Press the juice from some cherries into a pan and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer the juice to a large bottle with the cherry and apricot kernels.

  3. If desired, add the juice of 2-3 pounds of black cherries for color.

Add brandy and store

  1. Add ½ to ⅓ of the best brandy to the mixture.

  2. Seal the bottle and wait for fermentation to cease before corking.

  3. Store in a cool, dark place; it will keep for years if air is excluded.

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. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cherry juice
Provides the main flavor and color of the liqueur.
Apricot kernels
Add a bitter almond note to the flavor.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that preserves the liqueur and carries its aroma.

The step that matters

Wait for fermentation to cease before corking. If the bottle is corked while fermentation is still active, carbon dioxide builds pressure and can burst the bottle or push out the cork. Sealing only after activity stops keeps the bottle safe.

“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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