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Drink

Cherry Brandy

A fruit brandy made by bruising cherries and raspberries, steeping with brandy, sugar, coriander, and cinnamon, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,635 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cherry Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Stone the cherries.

  2. Mix them with raspberries.

  3. Bruise the mixture well.

  4. Place it in a vessel for 4-5 days.

  5. Stir it.

  6. Press it against the sides 2-3 times daily.

  7. Press out the juice.

Infuse

  1. Measure it into a stone bottle.

  2. Add 2 quarts of brandy for every 3 quarts of juice.

  3. Add 3 pinches of bruised cherry kernels.

  4. Add ¼ pound of fine loaf sugar.

  5. Infuse with a pinch of coriander.

  6. Infuse with a little cinnamon.

  7. Shake well daily for a week or more.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a cotton or flannel bag.

  2. Bottle it in well‑corked bottles.

  3. Store in a cool cellar until ready to 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. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + coriandertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Full ripe cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour, sugar and juice for the spirit.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the fruit and preserves the liquor.
Fine loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharpness of the fruit.
Bruised kernels of cherries
Add a subtle bitter almond note to the infusion.

The step that matters

Bruise the mixture well. Breaking the fruit releases juice and flavour compounds into the liquid; if the fruit is left whole, extraction is slow and uneven.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, cinnamon. 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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