Name: Superfine Absinthe
Ingredients: Essence of absinthe; Essence of mint; Essence of fennel; Essence of green anise; Essence of lemon; Alcohol (85°); Sugar; Water; Cream of Absinthe

Why it works: Fennel and anise 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 ↓

Superfine Absinthe

Ingredients

Directions

Make a syrup with the sugar and ½ cup of water, then cool it.
Dissolve the essence in the syrup and mix well.
Increase the mixture to 1 liter, color it green, and filter.

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.

Fennel + anisetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together47 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-anethole (anise).
Fennel + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together723 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Anise + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together91 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Mint + fenneltop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together168 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

Essence of absinthe: Supplies the main herbal flavor that defines the drink.
Sugar: Dissolves into the water to make a syrup that sweetens and softens the flavor.
Alcohol (85°): Carries the aromatic compounds from the essences and keeps them dissolved.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fennel, anise, lemon, sugar, cream):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Dillfits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fennel, anise, lemon, sugar, cream. 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.