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Caraway

A caraway-infused spirit made by steeping caraway and cassia in malt spirit, sweetened with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Caraway

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steep

  1. Pound the cassia and caraway seeds well.

  2. Steep them in 1 quart of the spirit for 3 to 4 days.

Make the mixture

  1. Kill the oil of caraway as previously described.

  2. Mix the steeped mixture with the remaining spirit of wine.

Combine

  1. Add the sugar to about 2 gallons of boiled and cooled soft water, removing any scum.

  2. Combine all ingredients in your cask.

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. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Caraway + cassiatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

  4. Spirit + carawaytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Spirit + cassiatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24 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

Rectified malt spirit
Acts as the solvent that draws flavour from the steeped spices.
Oil of caraway
Supplies the concentrated caraway aroma that defines the spirit.
Cassia
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma and flavour to the steeped base.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the sharpness of the alcohol.

The step that matters

Steep them in 1 quart of the spirit for 3 to 4 days.. Flavour compounds from crushed spices move into alcohol slowly, so the full steeping time lets the spice aroma build. Cutting it short leaves the flavour weak.

Swap the cassia

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (malt, spirit, caraway, sugar, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, spirit, caraway, sugar, wine. 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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