Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cherry Brandy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Remove the stalks from the cherries and prick them with a large needle or fork.
Drop the cherries into a bottle, filling it three parts full.
Steep
Add 6 ounces of sugar for every pound of cherries.
Fill the bottle with brandy and cork it tightly.
Shake the bottle occasionally and let it sit for 3 to 4 months.
Optionally, add a clove or two to enhance the flavor.
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.
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit flavor and color that the brandy extracts over time.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the liqueur and draws juice out of the cherries, helping flavor extraction.
- Brandy
- Acts as the alcohol base that extracts and preserves the cherry flavor.
The step that matters
Pricking the cherries. Piercing the skins lets brandy and sugar penetrate the fruit and draw out flavor. Unpierced cherries extract more slowly and less fully.
“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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