Name: Ratafia of Grenoble
Ingredients: 12 pounds small wild black cherries, bruised; 6 gallons proof spirit; 12 pounds sugar; Optional: a little citron peel

Why it works: Spirit and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Grenoble

Ingredients

12 pounds small wild black cherries, bruised
6 gallons proof spirit
12 pounds sugar
Optional: a little citron peel

Directions

Macerate

Combine bruised cherries and proof spirit in a large container.
Let the mixture digest for one month.

Strain and sweeten

Strain the mixture to remove solids.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
Optionally add citron peel 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.

Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 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

Wild black cherries: Provide the main fruit flavor and color that the spirit draws out.
Proof spirit: Extracts flavor and color from the fruit during the long steep.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the strong, tart fruit and alcohol.

“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.