Name: Rum Toddy
Ingredients: 1 bottle old Antigua rum; 1¼ cups water; ¾ cup lump sugar; yellow peel of 3 lemons; ice (size of two fists)

Why it works: Rum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Rum Toddy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the toddy

In a punch bowl, combine the rum, water, sugar, and lemon peel.
Stir slowly for 20 minutes until the sugar dissolves and the lemon oil flavors the mixture.
Remove the lemon peel and let the toddy stand for 20 minutes.

Serve

Add a large lump of ice and serve.

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.

Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rum + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,341 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Lemon peel: Lemon oil from the peel gives the toddy its aroma and citrus flavor.
Lump sugar: Sweetness that dissolves into the liquid, balancing the strong rum.
Old antigua rum: Provides the base spirit and the main flavor of the drink.