Name: Absinthe of Fougerolles
Ingredients: 750 g green anise; 410 g fennel; 260 g large absinthe, cleaned; 75 g lemon balm; 60 g hyssop; 66 g small absinthe; 66 g veronica; 9 liters alcohol (85°); 51 liters water

Why it works: Anise and fennel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 47 recipes. Both carry cis-anethole, which smells anise. The science ↓

Absinthe of Fougerolles

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

Macerate the green anise, fennel, large absinthe, lemon balm, hyssop, small absinthe, and veronica in alcohol for 12 hours.

Distill and adjust

Add water at the moment of distillation.
Distill off 9 liters of the mixture.
Continue distillation until all phlegm has been removed.
Reduce the strength of the liquid to 74°.

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.

Anise + fenneltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together47 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-anethole (anise).
Fennel + lemon balmtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Anise + lemon balmtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1 recipe

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Green anise: Contributes the sweet, licorice-like aroma characteristic of the spirit.
Fennel: Adds sweet, anise-like aromatic compounds that carry into the distillate.
Large absinthe: Provides the bitter herbal backbone that defines the absinthe character.
Alcohol (85°): Extracts the aromatic and bitter compounds from the herbs during maceration.

The step that matters

Reduce the strength of the liquid to 74°. Alcohol strength controls how much of the aromatic oils stay dissolved and how the spirit tastes and clouds. Adding water gradually and checking the strength keeps the balance of flavor compounds correct.