Name: Apricot Liqueur
Ingredients: 1 quart apricot syrup; 2 cups pale French brandy; ½ ounce blanched and bruised fruit kernels

Why it works: Apricot and brandy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apricot Liqueur

Ingredients

1 quart apricot syrup
2 cups pale French brandy
½ ounce blanched and bruised fruit kernels

Directions

Strain the apricot syrup until clear.
Mix the syrup with the brandy in a large container.
Infuse the mixture with the fruit kernels for a few days.
Serve as a liqueur.

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.

Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together561 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Apricot syrup: Provides the apricot sweetness and fruit flavor that forms the base of the liqueur.
Pale french brandy: Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the flavor compounds from the kernels.
Fruit kernels: Contribute a characteristic almond-like aroma and flavor during infusion.