Why it works: Cider and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓
How to Keep Cider
Ingredients
Directions
Add brandy or rum to the cider.
Dissolve powdered catechu in water and mix it in.
Stir in moist sugar, bitter almonds, and mustard seed.
Mix thoroughly and stir occasionally for 3 to 4 months until ready for use.
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.
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Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together404 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
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Almond + mustardtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together246 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Cider + mustardtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,414 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,969 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Brandy or rum
- Adds alcohol that helps preserve the cider and supports its stability over time.
- Powdered catechu
- Adds tannins that help clarify the cider and improve its keeping quality.
- Moist sugar
- Provides sweetness and fermentable sugar that the cider can use during aging.
- Mustard seed
- Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour to the finished cider.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, brandy, sugar, mustard):
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Almondthe original
- Beansfits about as well
- Hazelnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against cider, brandy, sugar, mustard. 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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