Skip to main content
Drink

Ratafia of Oranges

A sweet orange liqueur made by infusing orange rinds and juice with brandy and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Brandy and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the rinds and juice of the oranges with the brandy in a jar.

  2. Melt the sugar in the mixture and shake well.

  3. Let it infuse for one month.

  4. Filter the mixture and bottle it 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.

  1. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

Brandy
Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the orange flavour.
Orange rinds
Supply aromatic oils that give the liqueur its strong citrus aroma.
Orange juice
Adds fresh citrus acidity and fruit flavour to the spirit.
Sugar
Sweetens the liqueur and balances the alcohol and citrus acidity.

The step that matters

Let it infuse for one month. Alcohol slowly draws flavour and aromatic oil from the peel and juice over time. Stopping early leaves the liqueur thin and harsh, so the full month matters.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipes