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Ginger Cordial

A fruit and ginger cordial made by steeping berries and ginger in whisky, then straining over sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Whisky and ginger work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Ginger Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Steep

  1. In an earthenware jar, combine raspberries, currants, strawberries, whisky, and bruised ginger.

  2. Stir and crush the fruit occasionally for four days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through flannel over the white sugar.

  2. Let it sit in the jar until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Strain it through muslin into bottles.

  4. This can be used in a week but improves with time.

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. Whisky + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Currant + whiskytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Whisky + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

  5. Currant + gingertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together834 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Whisky
Extracts flavour from the fruit and ginger and preserves the cordial.
White sugar
Sweetens the cordial and balances the sharpness of the fruit.
Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body.
Whole ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the spirit.

The step that matters

Stir and crush the fruit occasionally for four days. Crushing breaks the fruit cells so their juice and colour release into the whisky, while stirring keeps the fruit submerged and evenly steeped. Skipping this leaves the flavour weak and uneven.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whisky, ginger, 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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