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Drink

Blackberry Spirit

A blackberry-infused spirit made by macerating berries, adding spices, and sweetening with a syrup.

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 ↓

Blackberry Spirit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Mash the blackberries thoroughly with a fruit masher or pestle.

  2. Add the mashed blackberries to the spirit immediately.

  3. Allow to macerate for at least two weeks.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Strain off the juice through a coarse sieve, pressing the residue thoroughly.

  2. Strain the juice two or three times through a tammy cloth.

  3. Prepare a thin syrup by boiling the sugar in water until it thickens slightly.

  4. Add the syrup to the spirit and juice mixture.

Bottle

  1. Filter into bottles through a funnel lined with filtering paper and cork securely.

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 + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

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

  3. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 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

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour, released into the spirit by mashing.
Brandy or overproof spirit
Extracts flavour from the fruit and preserves the finished liqueur.
Sugar
Sweetens the finished drink and balances the spirit's strength.

The step that matters

Add the syrup to the spirit and juice mixture. Sugar syrup must be thin and fully dissolved before it is added. Undissolved or overly thick syrup can settle or crystallise in the bottle, leaving the liqueur cloudy and uneven in sweetness.

Swap the mace

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

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

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