Name: Pineapple Lemonade
Ingredients: 2 pints of water; ¾ cup of sugar; juice of 5 lemons; 1 can of grated pineapple; 1 pint of ice water; cracked ice

Why it works: Lemon and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Boil 2 pints of water with ¾ cup of sugar to create a syrup.

Assemble and serve

Cool the syrup, then add the juice of 5 lemons, 1 can of grated pineapple, and 1 pint of ice water.
Serve over cracked ice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Sugar: Sweetens the lemonade and dissolves into the boiled water to form a syrup.
Lemon juice: Adds the sour, acidic bright flavour that balances the sweetness.
Grated pineapple: Adds fruit flavour, aroma and body to the drink.