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Compound Spirit of Lavender

A spirit infused with lavender, rosemary, cinnamon, nutmeg, and red Sanders' wood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Compound Spirit of Lavender

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Combine the spirits in a large container.

  2. Add the bruised cinnamon and nutmeg, and the chipped red Sanders' wood.

  3. Macerate the mixture for 14 days.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  2. For a deeper red color, macerate for a month or more.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rosemary + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Rosemary + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lavender + rosemarytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Spirit + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Spirit of lavender
Forms the main alcoholic base that carries the aroma of the whole recipe.
Spirit of rosemary
Adds a second herbal aroma layer to the base spirit.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet spice aroma as its compounds dissolve into the spirit.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, sweet spice aroma as its compounds dissolve into the spirit.
Red sanders' wood
Provides the red color and a woody flavor as it extracts into the spirit.

The step that matters

Macerate for the full 14 days. Maceration relies on time for alcohol to slowly draw aroma and color compounds out of bruised and chipped plant material. Stopping early leaves the infusion weaker in flavor and paler in color, and straining too soon wastes that extraction.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, lavender, rosemary, cinnamon):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, lavender, rosemary, cinnamon. 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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