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Mint Cordial

A mint-infused cordial made with brandy, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mint Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mint

  1. Pick fresh mint in the morning while dew is on it; do not bruise it.

  2. Pour water over the mint and drain it off.

Infuse the brandy

  1. Place 2 handfuls of mint in a pitcher with 1 quart of French brandy, cover, and let it stand overnight.

  2. Remove the mint and add more fresh mint; let it sit for another day.

  3. Add fresh mint a third time, removing it after 24 hours.

Finish and bottle

  1. Add 3 quarts of water and 1 pound of loaf sugar to the brandy, mix well, and bottle when clear.

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. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  2. Mint + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Brandy and sugar 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

Fresh mint
Supplies the main flavour, which is steeped into the brandy over several days.
French brandy
Acts as the solvent that draws out mint aroma and keeps the cordial stable.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the strong, sharp flavour of the mint and brandy.

The step that matters

Removing the mint at each stage. Leaving mint in the brandy too long can extract bitter, grassy notes, so the timing of each removal shapes the final flavour.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. 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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