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Blackberry Cordial

A sweet blackberry cordial made with blackberry juice, brandy, sugar, spices, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

Why it works: Blackberry and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and heat

  1. In a pot, combine blackberry juice and water.

  2. Add sugar and spices to taste.

  3. Heat the mixture on the stove until the sugar dissolves.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the brandy.

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. Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Blackberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Blackberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor, color, and liquid base of the cordial.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and dissolves into the liquid when heated.
Brandy
Adds warming alcohol and aroma to the finished cordial.

The step that matters

Stir in the brandy off the heat. Alcohol evaporates and its aroma fades when heated, so removing the pot from the stove before adding the brandy keeps more of its flavor in the finished cordial.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. 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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