Name: Raspberry Cordial
Ingredients: 3 pints ripe raspberries; 1 pint white brandy; 2.5 pounds white sugar

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 ↓

Raspberry Cordial

Ingredients

3 pints ripe raspberries
1 pint white brandy
2.5 pounds white sugar

Directions

Prepare the juice

Carefully pick and bruise the raspberries to extract the juice.

Macerate

Add 1 pint of white brandy to every 3 pints of juice.
Transfer the mixture to a demijohn and cork it tightly.
Let it stand for 2 weeks.

Finish and bottle

Filter the mixture through a muslin bag.
Dissolve 2.5 pounds of white sugar in each gallon of juice.
Bottle the cordial and cork it securely.

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

Ripe raspberries: Provide the juice and the main raspberry flavour of the cordial.
White brandy: Acts as a preservative and extracts flavour from the fruit during the standing period.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the raspberry juice.

“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.