Name: Cherry Bounce
Ingredients: Morella cherries; wild cherries; brandy; fine sugar; water

Why it works: Brandy and sugar 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 ↓

Cherry Bounce

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the cherries

Place Morella and wild cherries in a cask or demi-john.
Cover the cherries with brandy and seal tightly.
Let the mixture sit for three months.

Make the syrup and blend

Boil fine sugar and water until thick.
Cool the syrup.
Mix equal parts of the syrup and the brandy from the cherries.

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.

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

Morella cherries: Provide the main cherry flavour and aroma as they steep in the spirit.
Wild cherries: Add extra cherry flavour and aroma to the steeping liquid.
Brandy: Extracts flavour from the cherries and acts as the base spirit of the liqueur.
Fine sugar: Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong spirit.

“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.