Name: Raspberry Vinegar
Ingredients: ripe raspberries; strong vinegar; 1½ pounds lump sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Vinegar

Ingredients

ripe raspberries
strong vinegar
1½ pounds lump sugar

Directions

Infuse the vinegar

Fill a stone jar with ripe raspberries and cover with strong vinegar.
Let it stand for a week.
Pour the mixture through a sieve or strainer, crushing out all the juice from the berries.

Make the syrup and bottle

For each pint of vinegar, add 1½ pounds of lump sugar and boil until dissolved, removing any scum.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Bottle and cork tightly.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe raspberries: Provide the main flavour and colour, with their juice released into the vinegar.
Strong vinegar: Extracts flavour from the fruit and gives the finished syrup its sharp acidity.
Lump sugar: Sweetens the vinegar and, when dissolved by boiling, thickens it into a syrup.

“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.