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Raspberry Vinegar

A preserved raspberry vinegar made by steeping raspberries in white wine vinegar, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Raspberry Vinegar

Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the raspberries

  1. Pour 3 pints of white wine vinegar over 1½ pints of fresh red raspberries in a stone jar or china bowl.

  2. The next day, strain the liquid over another 1½ pints of fresh raspberries.

  3. Repeat this process the following day.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Drain the liquid without pressing and pass it through a wet jelly bag into a stone jar.

  2. Add 1 pound of pounded lump sugar for each pint of liquid and stir until dissolved.

Heat and bottle

  1. Cover the jar and place it in a saucepan of water, boiling for 1 hour while skimming off the scum.

  2. Add 1 glass of brandy for each pint, then bottle it.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Fresh red raspberries
Supply the main fruit flavour and colour that the vinegar draws out.
White wine vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts raspberry flavour and provides sharp acidity.
Pounded lump sugar
Sweetens and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Brandy
Adds a warm aroma and alcohol that helps keep the finished syrup stable.

The step that matters

Heating the covered jar in water for 1 hour. Gentle, sustained heat in a water bath warms the liquid evenly without a hard boil that could drive off aroma. Skimming removes coagulated scum so the syrup stays clear.

“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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