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Mint Cordial

A mint-infused whisky cordial sweetened with crushed sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Whisky and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,008 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mint Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the mint

  1. Wash and pick the mint leaves.

  2. Cover the mint leaves with whisky and let stand for 24 hours in a tightly covered dish.

Sweeten and rest

  1. Pour off the whisky and add ¼ pound of crushed sugar for each pint.

  2. Cork tightly and let it sit for one week before using.

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. Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

  2. Mint + whiskytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mint leaves
Provide the main aromatic flavor, which the whisky draws out over the steeping time.
Whisky
Extracts the aromatic oils from the mint and carries that flavor into the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the strong alcohol and mint flavors.

The step that matters

Cork tightly and rest for one week. Flavors blend and mellow during the resting period, so the cordial tastes better after a week than right after sweetening. A loose seal lets alcohol evaporate and changes the strength and taste.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whisky, 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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