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Drink

Cider Drink

A chilled cider infused with cucumber and finished with ginger ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 973 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cider Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cider

  1. Slice the cucumber and add it to the cider.

  2. Cover the pitcher and let it sit in a cool place for one hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture, then add the ginger ale.

  2. Serve immediately.

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.

  1. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cider + cucumbertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together572 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Cider + gingertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider
Forms the base of the drink and supplies its main apple flavour and sweetness.
Cucumber
Adds a fresh, mild vegetal aroma that infuses into the cider as it sits.
Ginger ale
Adds fizz and a light ginger sweetness when added just before serving.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, cucumber):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Peppermintfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, cucumber. 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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