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High-bush Blackberry Cordial

A sweet blackberry cordial made with blackberry juice, sugar, brandy, allspice, glycerine, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Blackberry and allspice work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

High-bush Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice and syrup

  1. Press out the juice from fresh blackberries.

  2. Add sugar to the juice and let it dissolve without heating.

Finish and use

  1. Mix in brandy and allspice.

  2. For indigestion, combine glycerine with water and take as needed.

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. Blackberry + allspicetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Blackberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Blackberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor and deep color of the cordial.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and dissolves into a syrup that balances the fruit's tartness.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and carries the spice aroma.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the blackberry flavor.
Glycerine
Adds smoothness and body, giving the cordial a softer, thicker mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar without heat. The sugar must fully dissolve into the cold juice. Heating would alter the fresh blackberry flavor, so the step is easy to rush or shortcut.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against blackberry, 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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