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Drink

Spirit of CuraQoa

A citrus-infused spirit made by drying lemon, orange, and Seville rind, steeping in brandy with cinnamon and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Spirit of CuraQoa

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Dry the thinly peeled rind of the lemons, sweet oranges, and Seville oranges in the oven.

Infuse

  1. Infuse the dried rinds in 3 pints of brandy with the cinnamon stick and mace for one month.

  2. Keep the mixture closely covered during the infusion.

Filter and bottle

  1. After a month, filter the infusion and bottle it in small bottles.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon, sweet orange and seville orange rind
Supplies the citrus oil and bitter aroma that flavour the liqueur.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the rinds and preserves the liqueur.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the infusion.
Mace
Adds a delicate, nutmeg-like aroma to the infusion.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture closely covered during the infusion. Brandy and other spirits evaporate readily, and essential oils from the rinds are volatile, so a loose lid lets alcohol and aroma escape and changes the strength and flavour of the finished liqueur.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, brandy, 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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