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Drink

Effervescing Draughts

A fizzy drink made by mixing soda, orange peel syrup, water, lemon juice or citric acid, and optional nitre.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Effervescing Draughts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the drink

  1. Mix the subcarbonate of potash or soda and syrup of orange peel in the water.

  2. Add the lemon juice or dissolved citric/tartaric acid.

  3. Consume while effervescing.

Take and use

  1. Take the alkaline solution followed by the acid for effervescence in the stomach.

  2. If desired, add nitre to enhance perspiration.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 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

Subcarbonate of potash or soda
Alkaline base that reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide bubbles.
Lemon juice or citric or tartaric acid
Acid that reacts with the alkaline base to produce the effervescence.
Syrup of orange peel
Adds sweetness and orange aroma to mask the alkaline taste.

The step that matters

Consume while effervescing. The carbon dioxide forms as the alkali and acid react, and it escapes quickly once the fizzing fades. Drinking promptly keeps the bubbles and the lively texture the drink depends on.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, lemon. 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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