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On the Adulteration of Gin

A mixture of gin, water, sugar, alum, and sub-carbonate of potash, left to sit for 24 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gin and sugar work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 344 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

On the Adulteration of Gin

Ingredients

Directions

Combine

  1. Mix 120 gallons of genuine gin with 14 gallons of water and 26 pounds of sugar.

  2. Dissolve a portion of alum in water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Add a solution of sub-carbonate of potash to the mixture.

Rest

  1. Stir the mixture together and let it sit undisturbed for 24 hours.

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. Gin + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gin
Forms the alcoholic base that carries the flavour of the finished mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and a fuller, rounder mouthfeel to the diluted spirit.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture sit undisturbed for 24 hours. Once the alum and potash solutions are added, any precipitate that forms needs time to settle. Disturbing the liquid keeps fine particles suspended, so the mixture stays cloudy and does not clear.

“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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