Name: Blackberry Cordial
Ingredients: 1 quart blackberry juice; 1½ pounds white granulated sugar; ½ ounce grated nutmeg; ½ ounce powdered cinnamon; ½ ounce mace; 1 teaspoon cloves

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Combine blackberry juice and sugar in a pot.
Place nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and cloves in a muslin bag and tie it shut, then add the muslin bag to the pot and boil for 15 minutes.
Strain the mixture and seal in bottles.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 liquid and fruity flavour base of the cordial.
White granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the finished cordial.
Grated nutmeg: Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour as it steeps in the hot liquid.
Powdered cinnamon: Contributes warm, sweet aromatic flavour that infuses into the syrup.
Mace: Adds a delicate, warm aroma similar to nutmeg.
Cloves: Adds strong, pungent aroma that flavours the cordial during boiling.

Swap the mace

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

Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against blackberry, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. 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.