Skip to main content
Drink

Mock Arrack

A spiced, infused alcoholic beverage made with rum, brandy or whisky, raisins, spices, orange rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Arrack

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the flowers of benjamin in the rum.

  2. Steep the raisins, nutmeg, cloves, cardamoms, orange rind, brown sugar-candy, and tincture of saffron in the brandy or whisky.

Infuse and filter

  1. Bruise the spices and infuse the mixture for 2 to 3 weeks, shaking daily.

  2. Filter the mixture for use.

  3. For a red color or preferred flavor, substitute the tincture of saffron with syrup of clove gilliflowers.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together249 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cardamom + orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 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

Rum
Serves as the alcohol base that dissolves the flowers of benjamin before infusing.
Brandy or whisky
Acts as the main alcohol base that extracts flavour from the fruit and spices.
Raisins
Add sweetness and body, and release flavour into the alcohol during steeping.
Brown sugar-candy
Adds sweetness and a rounded, rich body to the finished liquor.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma that defines the spiced character of the drink.
Tincture of saffron
Gives the liquor its golden colour and a subtle floral, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Infuse the full time with daily shaking. Alcohol extracts flavour slowly from bruised spices and dried fruit, so a short infusion leaves the mix weak and uneven. Daily shaking keeps the spices in contact with the liquid, helping flavour and colour spread evenly.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rum, brandy, raisin, nutmeg, cardamom, orange, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, brandy, raisin, nutmeg, cardamom, orange, 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipesOrgeat SyrupOrgeat Syrup13 recipes