Name: Ginger Mint
Ingredients: 4 oz lemon syrup; 12 oz ginger syrup; 2 teaspoons tincture of capsicum; ½ teaspoon tincture of peppermint; shaved ice; mint leaves for decoration

Why it works: Lemon and peppermint match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,583 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ginger Mint

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Mix the lemon syrup, ginger syrup, tincture of capsicum, and tincture of peppermint in a large glass.

Serve

Serve the mixture over shaved ice.
Decorate with mint leaves and provide straws for serving.

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.

Lemon + pepperminttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,583 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ginger + pepperminttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together580 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + minttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon syrup: Adds sweetness and bright citrus flavor that balances the spices.
Ginger syrup: Adds sweetness and a warm, spicy ginger aroma.
Tincture of capsicum: Adds a sharp, pungent heat from capsaicin.
Tincture of peppermint: Adds a cooling, fresh aroma and taste.

Swap the capsicum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, syrup, ginger, peppermint, mint):

Cucumberfits better
Carrotfits better
Broccolifits better
Capsicumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup, ginger, peppermint, mint. 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.