Name: Rose Brandy
Ingredients: rose leaves; ⅓ cup fourth proof French brandy

Why it works: Rose and brandy work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 560 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Rose Brandy

Ingredients

rose leaves
⅓ cup fourth proof French brandy

Directions

Gather rose leaves while the dew is on them.
Place the leaves into a wide-mouthed bottle.
Fill the bottle with the brandy.
Let it sit for three to four weeks 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.

Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together560 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rose leaves: Supply the floral aroma and flavor that the brandy takes up during steeping.
Fourth proof french brandy: Acts as the solvent that draws aroma and flavor out of the rose leaves over time.

“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.