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Peach Cordial

A peach cordial made by steeping peeled peaches and kernels in peach brandy with a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 339 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and halve the peaches.

  2. Crack the stones and remove enough kernels to make ½ cup.

  3. Place the peaches and kernels in a stone jar.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the water and sugar together until a rich syrup forms, skimming as needed.

  2. Mix the syrup with the brandy and pour over the fruit.

Steep and bottle

  1. Let it stand for six weeks, then strain and bottle.

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.

  1. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 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. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

Yellow peaches
Provide the main fruit flavor and aroma that the cordial is built on.
Peach brandy
Extracts flavor from the fruit and acts as the preserving alcohol for the cordial.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the cordial.
Peach kernels
Add a distinct almond-like bitter note that deepens the peach flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup. Boiling water and sugar until rich dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the syrup, so it blends evenly with the brandy. Skimming removes foam and impurities, keeping the finished cordial clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe 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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