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Blackberry Cordial

A sweet alcoholic beverage made from blackberries, sugar, spices, ginger, and whisky.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

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 Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Cook the blackberries until the seeds are soft.

  2. Strain the juice through a coarse linen bag.

  3. Measure the juice; for every 4 pints, add 1 cup of sugar.

Boil and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a clear kettle and boil, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add the spice mix and ginger, then boil again.

  3. Measure again; for every 4 pints of juice, add 1 cup of whisky.

  4. Cork tightly and store.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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. Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 juice, flavour and natural colour of the cordial.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps preserve the cordial.
Good whisky
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and carries the spice aroma.
Spice mix
Adds warm aroma from cloves and cinnamon.
Ginger
Adds a sharp, warm aroma and spicy flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while boiling. Foam rises from the juice as it boils and carries impurities. Skimming it off keeps the cordial clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, ginger, whisky. 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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