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French Ratafia, or Incomparable Cordial Gin

A French gin cordial made by infusing juniper, spices, and sugar in brandy and water, then sun‑cured and filtered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

French Ratafia, or Incomparable Cordial Gin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice base

  1. Beat the juniper berries, cinnamon, mace, coriander seeds, and cloves in a mortar until well crushed.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in 2 quarts of water over heat to make a syrup.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the crushed ingredients in a vessel.

Steep and bottle

  1. Seal the vessel tightly and expose it to sunlight for 6 weeks.

  2. After 6 weeks, filter the liquid through a cotton or flannel bag and bottle for use.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Coriander + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolved into syrup, it adds sweetness and body to the finished liqueur.
Juniper berries
Provide the characteristic piney, resinous flavour that defines the spirit.
Brandy
Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and carries the spice flavours.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the infused spirit.

The step that matters

Seal the vessel tightly during steeping. Alcohol vapour escapes easily from an open container, changing the strength and concentration of the infusion. A tightly sealed vessel keeps the alcohol and aromatic compounds in the liquid while the spices steep over the six weeks.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, cinnamon, coriander, clove, 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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