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Drink

Brandy Burned with Peach

A drink made by burning brandy with sugar, poured over dried peach slices and topped with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brandy Burned with Peach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a saucer, combine the brandy and sugar.

  2. Burn the brandy and sugar mixture together.

Serve

  1. Place the dried peach slices in a hot stem glass.

  2. Pour the burned liquid over the peach slices.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg on top and serve.

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. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Brandy + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar 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

Brandy
Provides the alcohol base that is burned, adding warm, rich aroma to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the brandy and helps the mixture caramelise slightly as it burns.
Dried peach
Adds concentrated fruit sweetness and a chewy, mellow flavour to the drink.

The step that matters

Burn the brandy and sugar mixture together. Alcohol vapour can ignite quickly, so the mixture must be handled carefully and kept away from flammable items. Burning also cooks off some alcohol and lightly caramelises the sugar, which changes the flavour.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, peach. 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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