Name: Whisxt Shrub
Ingredients: 8 pounds brown sugar; 1 quart water; 2 gallons best whisky or silent spirit; strained juice of 7 pounds lemons; strained juice of 3 pounds Seville oranges; 1 pint best porter

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Whisxt Shrub

Ingredients

8 pounds brown sugar
1 quart water
2 gallons best whisky or silent spirit
strained juice of 7 pounds lemons
strained juice of 3 pounds Seville oranges
1 pint best porter

Directions

Make the syrup

Dissolve the brown sugar in 1 quart of water to make a syrup.
Let the syrup cool, then pour it into a jar.

Blend and steep

Add 2 gallons of whisky, the strained juice of the lemons and oranges, and 1 pint of porter.
Shake the jar well every day for a week.
Allow the mixture to stand for 5 weeks to fine.

Bottle

After 5 weeks, bottle the shrub.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Whisky + orangetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together187 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + whiskytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,008 recipes

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

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

Brown sugar: Dissolved into syrup to provide sweetness that balances the sharp citrus and spirit.
Whisky or silent spirit: Base spirit that carries the flavour and preserves the shrub.
Lemons: Supply the main acidity and bright citrus flavour.
Seville oranges: Add further acidity and bitter citrus aroma.
Porter: Contributes malty, roasted flavour and colour.