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Prepare and Siveeien British Gin

A gin made by mixing spirits, oils, sugars, and water, then stirring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 258 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Prepare and Siveeien British Gin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Combine ¼ ounce oil of vitriol, ½ ounce oil of almonds, ¼ ounce oil of turpentine, 1 ounce oil of juniper berries, and ½ pound lump sugar in a mortar. Rub the mixture well together.

  2. Prepare ½ gallon of lime water and 1 gallon of rose water. Mix the lime water and rose water with the rubbed ingredients until dissolved.

Combine in the cask

  1. Pour 120 gallons of clear rectified spirits into an empty cask.

  2. Dissolve 25 pounds of sugar in 9 gallons of rain or boiled water. Add the dissolved sugar water to the mixture in the cask.

  3. Stir the mixture carefully with a stick until well combined.

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. Almond + limetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together258 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Spirit + rosetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together140 recipes

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

  5. Spirit + limetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 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

Clear rectified spirits
Forms the base of the gin and carries the flavourings in solution.
Oil of juniper berries
Provides the characteristic juniper aroma that defines gin.
Oil of almonds
Adds a subtle nutty aroma that rounds out the botanical flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the sharp alcohol taste.
Rose water
Contributes a floral aroma to the finished spirit.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, almond, wine, sugar, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, almond, wine, sugar, rose. 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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