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Vanilla Liqueur

A vanilla-infused gin liqueur made with sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Liqueur

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Break the vanilla into the gin and let it infuse for 14 days.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar in a quart of water to make a clear syrup.

Finish and bottle

  1. Pour the syrup into the infused gin and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Filter the mixture and bottle it.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Gin + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + gintop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Vanilla
Provides the main vanilla aroma and flavour as it steeps in the spirit.
Proof gin
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the vanilla and preserves the liqueur.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, softening the alcohol's sharpness in the finished liqueur.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup into the infused gin and simmer for 10 minutes. Alcohol evaporates when heated, so simmering reduces the spirit's strength and can drive off aroma. Keep the heat gentle and the time short so the vanilla flavour stays clean and the liqueur does not taste harsh or cooked.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against gin, 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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