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Sweet-grape Cordial

A sweet cordial made by boiling Concord grapes, sugar, and water, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sweet-grape Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Crush the grapes in the water and place them in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Stir well and bring to a boil, then cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved, then strain again through a cloth.

  2. Heat the mixture to boiling point again.

  3. Pour into pint or quart bottles and seal immediately.

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. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Concord grapes
Provide the main juice, colour and fruity flavour of the cordial.
White sugar
Adds sweetness, balances the grape's tartness and helps preserve the cordial.

The step that matters

Seal immediately after reheating. The cordial must be hot when poured and sealed. Hot liquid in clean bottles drives out air and helps prevent spoilage microbes from growing later, so delay lets the bottles cool and weakens the seal.

“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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