Why it works: Ginger and brandy work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 905 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Ginger Cordial
Ingredients
Directions
Crush the ginger in a mortar or cut it into small pieces.
Put the ginger into a bottle with the brandy.
Let it stand until bright and clear.
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.
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Ginger + brandytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together905 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ginger
- Supplies the aromatic, spicy flavour that gives the cordial its character.
- Brandy
- Extracts flavour from the ginger and acts as a preserving base for the cordial.
The step that matters
Let it stand until bright and clear. Standing lets fine particles from the crushed ginger settle and the liquid clarify. Rushing this step leaves the cordial cloudy with suspended ginger fragments.
“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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