Name: Another Way to Make Ratafia
Ingredients: 500 peach kernels; 1 gallon pale brandy; 2 quarts Frontignae; 1 pint orange-flower water; 1 pound and 3/4 double-refined sugar

Why it works: Peach and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 385 recipes. Both carry pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the peach kernels in the pale brandy for six weeks.
Add Frontignae, orange-flower water, and sugar to the mixture.
Shake the mixture daily.
After six weeks, strain through a jelly bag until clear.

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.

Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together385 recipes

Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).
Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together339 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 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

Peach kernels: Provide the main nutty, almond-like aroma that the brandy draws out during steeping.
Pale brandy: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour compounds from the kernels over the steeping period.
Double-refined sugar: Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong, bitter notes of the steeped kernels.
Orange-flower water: Adds a delicate floral aroma that lifts the overall fragrance of the liqueur.

The step that matters

Steeping the peach kernels for six weeks. Flavour compounds move slowly from the kernels into the alcohol, so cutting the steeping short leaves a weak, underdeveloped liqueur. Daily shaking keeps the kernels in contact with the brandy.

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Plumfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, 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.

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Another Way to Make Ratafia