Name: Ratafia of Grenoble
Ingredients: 12 pounds small wild black cherries, bruised with their kernels; 6 gallons proof spirit; 12 pounds sugar; optional: a little citron peel

Ratafia of Grenoble

A cherry liqueur made by macerating bruised cherries in spirit, then sweetening with sugar and optionally adding citron peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients

Why it works: Spirit and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Grenoble

Ingredients

12 pounds small wild black cherries, bruised with their kernels
6 gallons proof spirit
12 pounds sugar
optional: a little citron peel

Directions

Infuse

Combine bruised cherries and proof spirit in a large container.
Let the mixture digest for one month.

Strain and sweeten

Strain the mixture to remove solids.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
Optionally, add a little citron peel for 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.

Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild black cherries: Supply the main fruit flavor and color to the spirit during digestion.
Proof spirit: Acts as the solvent that draws flavor and color out of the cherries.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and softens the sharp bite of the alcohol.

“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.