Name: Cherry Syrup
Ingredients: 1 gallon cherry juice; 1 gallon water; 24 pounds sugar; 3 ounces citric acid

Why it works: Cherry and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,598 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cherry Syrup

Ingredients

1 gallon cherry juice
1 gallon water
24 pounds sugar
3 ounces citric acid

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine cherry juice and water in a large pot.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
Mix in citric acid and stir well.

Alternative method

Alternatively, mix cherry juice with 3 to 5 times its volume of simple syrup and add 40 to 60 grains of citric acid per pint of syrup.

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.

Cherry + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,598 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cherry juice: Provides the main cherry flavor and color of the syrup.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the syrup.
Citric acid: Adds tartness that balances the sweetness and brightens the cherry flavor.

“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.