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Blackberry Cordial

A sweet alcoholic beverage made from blackberries, sugar, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Crush the blackberries slightly and simmer them over low heat until all the juice is released.

  2. Strain the juice through a bag, squeezing out as you would with currants for jelly.

Make the cordial

  1. For each pint of juice, add a heaping cup of sugar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a hard boil, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add a handful of cloves, 3 sticks of cinnamon, 3 pieces of ginger root, and a little allspice to the boiling juice, then boil again.

  4. Strain off the spices.

  5. Add ¼ pint of French brandy to each pint of juice.

  6. Bottle it hot.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that becomes the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the blackberry juice.
Cloves
Add a warm, pungent aroma to the spiced juice.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the cordial.
Ginger root
Adds a sharp, warming aroma that lifts the fruit flavour.
French brandy
Adds alcohol that carries the spice aromas and helps keep the cordial stable.

The step that matters

Skim the foam during the hard boil. The foam that rises during the hard boil carries impurities from the fruit juice. Skimming it off keeps the cordial clear and free of off-flavours before the spices and brandy are added.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, allspice, brandy. 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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