Name: Acid Drinks
Ingredients: 30 large lemons; ½ pint boiling water; 1 tablespoon currant jelly

Why it works: Lemon and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,270 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Acid Drinks

Ingredients

30 large lemons
½ pint boiling water
1 tablespoon currant jelly

Directions

Cover the lemons closely and let them steep until the water is cold.
Pour ½ pint of boiling water over 1 tablespoon of currant jelly and stir until dissolved.
Cranberries and barberries can be used similarly for refreshing drinks.

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 + curranttop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Provide the main acidity and citrus aroma, with flavour drawn out by steeping.
Boiling water: Extracts flavour from the lemons and dissolves the currant jelly.
Currant jelly: Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to balance the lemon's acidity.

“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.