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Ratafia De Noyaux, or Noyau

A liqueur made by bruising apricot or peach kernels with spice, steeping in brandy, and sweetening with dissolved sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and apricot work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ratafia De Noyaux, or Noyau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the blanched kernels with the spice in a marble mortar.

  2. Combine the bruised mixture with the brandy and let it sit for 3 to 4 months.

Finish and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the river water and add it to the strained mixture.

  3. Filter the ratafia and bottle it.

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. Brandy + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apricot + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apricot or peach kernels
Provide the characteristic almond-like aroma and flavor of the liqueur.
Brandy
Acts as the base spirit that extracts flavor from the bruised kernels over months.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the bitterness and strength of the spirit.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture sit for 3 to 4 months. The flavor comes from slow extraction by the alcohol over time. Cutting the steeping short leaves the ratafia weak and underflavored, so the full resting period matters.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, 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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