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Drink

Coffee Cocktail

A mixed drink of coffee syrup, egg, port wine, brandy, and soda water, garnished with mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Coffee Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a shaker, combine coffee syrup, egg, port wine, and brandy.

  2. Shake well and strain into a small glass.

  3. Top with soda water and garnish with a sprinkle of mace.

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. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Port wine + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Coffee + syruptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Brandy + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,547 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Shaking emulsifies and aerates the egg, giving the drink a silky, frothy body.
Coffee syrup
Adds sweetness and the main coffee flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, body and a rich fruity depth.
Brandy
Adds warmth and aromatic spirit character.

The step that matters

Shake well. The egg must be shaken hard with the cold liquids so its proteins emulsify and trap air. This creates a silky, frothy texture; under-shaking leaves the drink thin and the egg poorly blended.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, syrup, egg, port wine, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, syrup, egg, port wine, brandy. 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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