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Blackberry Cordial

A homemade blackberry cordial made by macerating blackberries with sugar, then adding brandy and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Blackberry Cordial

Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar and blackberries in a bowl and let stand for 12 hours.

  2. Press out the juice and strain it.

  3. Add the brandy and spices to the strained juice.

  4. Bottle and cork tightly. No cooking required.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy 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

Sugar
Draws juice out of the blackberries and sweetens the finished cordial.
Blackberries
Provide the main fruit juice and flavour of the cordial.
Good brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cordial and adds depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Let the sugar and blackberries stand. The 12-hour rest lets the sugar draw juice out of the berries through osmosis, so pressing yields enough liquid. Skipping or shortening the rest leaves less juice and a weaker, less sweet cordial.

“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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