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Black-currant Ratafia

A liqueur made by macerating black‑currant berries in brandy, spiced with cinnamon and lemon zest, then sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black-currant Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the berries

  1. Choose ripe black-currant berries and remove their stalks.

  2. Crush the berries and place them in a glass jug.

  3. Moisten the berries with 2 quarts of brandy.

  4. Add a bit of cinnamon, a few black-currant leaves, and a bit of lemon zest.

Steep and sweeten

  1. Seal the jug and expose it to sunlight for 6 weeks.

  2. After 6 weeks, drain the liquid and filter it.

  3. Mix the filtered liquid with 4 pounds of crushed loaf sugar until dissolved.

  4. Bottle the liqueur.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 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. Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Black-currant berries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour that the brandy extracts over the steeping period.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour and colour from the fruit and preserves the liqueur.
Crushed loaf sugar
Sweetens the liqueur and balances the sharpness and alcohol of the brandy.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar in the filtered liquid. Sugar must fully dissolve in the strained liquid so the liqueur is smooth and evenly sweet. Undissolved crystals can settle in the bottle and leave the sweetness uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, brandy, 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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