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Ginger Liqueur

A liqueur made by infusing whisky with sugar, almonds, ginger, and lemon rinds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Liqueur

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water.

  2. Add the sweet and bitter almonds, bruised ginger, and lemon rinds.

  3. Mix these ingredients with the whisky.

Steep and bottle

  1. Let it stand for a week.

  2. Strain carefully through filtered paper and bottle.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger 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

Lump sugar
Dissolving the sugar makes a syrup that sweetens the liqueur and gives it a smooth body.
Whisky
Acts as the solvent that draws flavour compounds out of the almonds, ginger and lemon.
Sweet almonds
Add a mild, nutty flavour and a rounded richness to the liqueur.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a sharper, more intense almond aroma.
Bruised ginger
Bruising breaks plant cells so the ginger releases more aromatic oils into the spirit.
Lemon rinds
Their peel oils add bright citrus aroma and a slight bitterness.

The step that matters

Strain carefully through filtered paper. Fine solids and sediment from the steeped almonds and ginger can cloud the liqueur and leave a gritty texture. Straining slowly through filter paper removes these particles and gives a clear, smooth result.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Flaxseedfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon, whisky. 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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