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Drink

Mint Nectar

A chilled mint spirit drink with vanilla, fruit acid, syrup, and shaved ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peppermint and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 459 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Mint Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nectar

  1. Mix the spirit peppermint with 9 ounces of water.

  2. Filter the mixture through magnesium carbonate.

  3. Add the extract vanilla, fruit acid, and syrup to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve in a glass with shaved ice and a paper straw.

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. Peppermint + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Vanilla + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Spirit + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

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

  4. Spirit + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Spirit + pepperminttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Spirit peppermint
Provides the main minty aroma and flavour of the drink.
Extract vanilla
Adds a rounded, aromatic sweetness that softens the mint.
Fruit acid
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

Swap the peppermint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, vanilla, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Peppermintthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, vanilla, syrup. 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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