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Cinnamon Cordial

A spirit infused with cinnamon, cassia, orange oil, caraway, sugar, and burnt sugar, then fined with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cassia and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 116 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. The science ↓

Cinnamon Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 2 gallons of rectified malt spirit with 1.5 grams of oil of cassia, 0.5 grams of oil of orange, and 2 drops of oil of caraway.

  2. Add 0.5 ounces of cinnamon and 2 pounds of loaf sugar.

  3. Color the mixture with burnt sugar and fine it with a little isinglass.

  4. Stir well and let it sit to develop flavor.

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. Cassia + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Caraway + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Orange + carawaytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Rectified malt spirit
Acts as the solvent that carries the essential oils and cinnamon flavor through the liquor.
Oil of cassia
Provides the main cinnamon-like aroma and warm spice flavor.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong spice and alcohol.
Cinnamon
Adds additional natural cinnamon flavor and aroma.

The step that matters

Stir well and let it sit to develop flavor. Essential oils and spice compounds dissolve unevenly at first, so thorough stirring distributes them. Resting lets the flavors blend and mellow, while the sugar fully dissolves into the spirit.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (malt, spirit, cassia, orange, cinnamon, sugar):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, spirit, cassia, orange, cinnamon, sugar. 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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