Name: Cherry Brandy
Ingredients: morello cherries or small black cherries; brandy (or whiskey, gin, or spirit distilled from wine lees); 1 pound loaf sugar; tincture of cinnamon or cloves (to taste)

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cherry Brandy

Ingredients

morello cherries or small black cherries
brandy (or whiskey, gin, or spirit distilled from wine lees)
1 pound loaf sugar
tincture of cinnamon or cloves (to taste)

Directions

Prepare

Pick the cherries from the stalks and fill the bottles nearly to the necks.
Pour brandy over the cherries until the bottles are full.

Steep and flavor

After three weeks to a month, strain off the spirit.
For each quart of spirit, add 1 pound of loaf sugar and flavor with tincture of cinnamon or cloves.

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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,199 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Morello cherries or small black cherries: Provide the main fruit flavor and color that the spirit draws out during steeping.
Brandy: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor and color from the cherries over time.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness that softens the sharp spirit and balances the fruit's tartness.

“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.