Skip to main content
Drink

Common Ratafia

A traditional Italian liqueur made by infusing bruised nutmegs, bitter almonds, and ambergris in spirit, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Common Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Rub the nutmegs, almonds, and ambergris with sugar in a mortar.

  2. Mix with 2 quarts of proof spirit.

Infuse and serve

  1. Let it infuse for 2 weeks.

  2. Filter before serving.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Almond + spirittop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + spirittop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Nutmeg and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Bitter almonds
Contribute the characteristic nutty, marzipan-like aroma and flavour to the liqueur.
Nutmegs
Add warm, spicy aroma that infuses into the spirit during steeping.
Proof spirit
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the bruised and chopped ingredients.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw flavour out when rubbed into the ingredients.

The step that matters

Let it infuse for 2 weeks. Flavour is extracted slowly from the solids into the alcohol, so cutting the infusion short leaves the liqueur weak and underdeveloped.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, spirit, 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

Almond MilkAlmond Milk18 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes