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Drink

French Ratafia

A sweet liqueur made by infusing brandy with spices, sugar, and water, then sun‑curing and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

French Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the juniper berries, cinnamon, mace, coriander seed, and cloves in a mortar.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in 2 quarts of water over heat.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten ingredients in a vessel.

Infuse and strain

  1. Seal the vessel and expose it to sunlight for 6 weeks.

  2. Strain the mixture through a cotton or flannel bag.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Coriander + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 carries the spice and juniper flavours.
Juniper berries
Provide the main resinous, piney aroma that defines the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong spice and alcohol.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the infusion.
Cloves
Add pungent, warm aroma to the infusion.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the beaten ingredients. The syrup must be fully dissolved and hot so it blends evenly with the spices and alcohol. Undissolved sugar can settle and leave the mixture unevenly sweetened.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, cinnamon, coriander, clove, 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.

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