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Peach Cordial

A sweet peach liqueur made by macerating peaches in brandy, water, and sugar.

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. Wash and wipe the peaches, then cut them from the stones.

  2. Break half the stones and remove the kernels.

  3. Place the peaches and kernels in a cask, filling it full.

  4. Pour in enough peach brandy to fill the cask, then seal it tightly.

Steep and finish

  1. Let it stand for two months, shaking occasionally.

  2. After two months, draw off the liquid and dilute it with half water, unless a stronger flavor is preferred.

  3. Add 2½ pounds of sugar for each gallon of liquid.

  4. Filter the mixture through a muslin cloth over a sieve.

  5. Cork securely in demi-johns or bottles for storage.

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

Finely flavored ripe peaches
Provide the main fruit flavor that is extracted into the liquid.
Peach brandy
Acts as the alcohol base that extracts and preserves the peach flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the finished cordial.

The step that matters

Sealing the cask tightly. A well-sealed cask keeps air out and the alcohol concentration stable, so the fruit steeps in the brandy without spoiling during the two-month infusion.

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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