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Currant Shrub

A sweet syrup made from currant juice, sugar, and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine currant juice and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently for 8 to 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool to lukewarm.

Add brandy and store

  1. Stir in French brandy.

  2. Bottle and cork tightly.

  3. Store in a cool place.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Currant juice
Provides the tart, fruity base flavor of the shrub.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness and helps preserve the mixture.
French brandy
Adds aroma and alcohol, which also helps keep the shrub stable.

The step that matters

Stir in French brandy only after cooling to lukewarm. Brandy's alcohol and aromatic compounds are volatile and evaporate when hot, so adding it after the syrup has cooled keeps more of its flavor and aroma in the finished shrub.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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