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 ↓
Cherry Brandy
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the stalks from the cherries and pick over the fruit without washing it.
Half fill a large wide-mouthed bottle with layers of cherries and pounded sugar.
Fill the bottle with French brandy and cork it well.
Bruise a few cherries to crack the stones for better flavor.
The longer it stands, the finer it becomes.
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.
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Black cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and aroma, which the brandy slowly draws out.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and draws juice from the cherries, softening the final flavour.
- French brandy
- Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the fruit and preserves the mixture.
The step that matters
Bruise a few cherries to crack the stones. Cracking some stones lets the kernels release their nutty, almond-like aroma into the brandy. Bruising only a few keeps the flavour balanced rather than bitter.
“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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