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Brandy Peaches

Preserved peaches simmered in sugar syrup, then soaked in brandy and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Brandy Peaches

Why it works: Peach and whisky work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Brandy Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches.

  2. Weigh the peaches.

  3. Add half the weight of sugar to the peaches.

  4. Add just enough water to moisten the sugar.

Cook the peaches

  1. Boil until the peaches are tender enough to pierce with a straw.

  2. Remove the peaches.

  3. Place the peaches on dishes.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the syrup until it thickens.

  2. Let the syrup cool in a bowl.

  3. For every 3 pints of syrup, add 2 pints of whisky or brandy.

Jar

  1. Pour the mixture over the peaches in airtight jars.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Peach + whiskytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25 recipes

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

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + whiskytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 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

Peaches
The main fruit; its flesh softens as it cooks and gives the preserve its body and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it dissolves, draws water out to form the syrup.
Whisky or brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the peaches until tender. Boiling too long makes the peach flesh break down and lose its shape. Stop once a straw pierces the fruit easily, since the peaches will keep softening in the hot syrup.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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