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Drink

Brandy Smash

A chilled cocktail made with brandy, mint, sugar, shaved ice, and seasonal fruit garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brandy Smash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a glass, combine the sugar and fresh mint.

  2. Muddle the mint with the sugar to release the mint oils.

  3. Add brandy to the glass.

  4. Fill the glass with shaved ice and stir well with a spoon.

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

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

  2. Mint + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps draw oils out of the mint when muddled.
Fresh mint
Adds aroma; muddling releases its essential oils into the glass.
Brandy
Provides the spirit base and warm, fruity flavour of the drink.

The step that matters

Muddling the mint with the sugar. Pressing gently releases aromatic oils from the leaves. Pressing too hard tears the leaves and can make the drink taste bitter and grassy.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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