Name: Red Ratafia
Ingredients: 6 pounds black heart cherries; 1 pound small black cherries; 2 each raspberries; 2 each strawberries; ½ pound best loaf sugar; 1 quart best brandy; cinnamon or cloves to taste

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Red Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the fruit

Place the cherries, raspberries, and strawberries in a stone jar.
Cover the jar and set it in a kettle of water or on a hot hearth.

Strain and flavor

Drain the juice from the fruit.
For every quart of juice, add ½ pound of clarified sugar and 1 quart of brandy.
Add cinnamon or cloves for flavor.

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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,199 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

Black heart cherries: Supply the main juice, fruit flavor, and deep red color of the liqueur.
Best loaf sugar: Sweetens the juice and balances the fruit's natural tartness.
Best brandy: Draws out flavor from the fruit and adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture.

“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.