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Fine English Hollands , and Other Cordial Gins

A cordial gin made with juniper, turpentine, almond oils, vitriol, wine spirits, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Fine English Hollands , and Other Cordial Gins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the oil mixture

  1. Rub together the sugar, oils, and oil of vitriol in a marble mortar.

  2. Gradually add the strong spirits of wine until the mixture is smooth and oily appearances are gone.

Make the syrup and combine

  1. Dissolve the lump sugar in the clear water.

  2. Combine the two mixtures and stir well.

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. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Almond + spirittop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  5. Almond + winetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil of juniper
Adds the main aromatic flavour of the spirit.
Oil of almonds
Adds a distinct nutty, aromatic note.
Oil of turpentine
Adds a sharp, resinous aroma.
Spirits of wine
Helps dissolve the oils so they can blend smoothly with the water.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the finished liquid.

The step that matters

Working the oils smooth with the spirit. Oils do not mix with water on their own. Rubbing them with sugar and adding the spirit gradually breaks them into a fine, smooth blend. If the spirit is added too quickly or the mixture is not worked until smooth, the oils can separate and leave the finished liquid cloudy or oily.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, wine, 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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