Name: Raspberry Branry
Ingredients: fine dry fruit; ½ pound sugar; equal quantities of juice and brandy

Why it works: Sugar and brandy 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 ↓

Raspberry Branry

Ingredients

fine dry fruit
½ pound sugar
equal quantities of juice and brandy

Directions

Extract the juice

Place fine dry fruit in a stone jar.
Submerge the jar in a saucepan of boiling water until the juice runs out.
Strain the juice and add ½ pound of sugar for every pint of juice.

Finish and bottle

Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.
Once cooled, mix equal parts of the juice and brandy.
Shake well and bottle for use.

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 + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy 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

Fine dry fruit: Provides the juice that gives the liqueur its fruity flavour and colour.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit juice.
Brandy: Adds alcohol that carries the fruit aroma and helps keep the finished liqueur stable.

“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.