Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fancy Syrups
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in water to make a syrup with a specific gravity of 32° Beaume.
Stop boiling and add the double proof spirit, Kirschenwasser, lemon spirit, and citric acid.
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.
-
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together602 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Spirit + lemontop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together256 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup.
- Kirschenwasser
- Supplies the main cherry flavor and aroma.
- Double proof spirit
- Adds alcohol that carries flavor and helps preserve the syrup.
- Lemon spirit
- Adds bright citrus aroma to round out the cherry flavor.
- Citric acid
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness.
The step that matters
Add the spirits after boiling stops. Alcohol evaporates quickly when hot, so adding the spirits off the boil keeps more of their alcohol and aroma in the finished syrup.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, spirit):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Applefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, spirit. 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.
You might also like
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Lemon Sherbet103 recipes
Lemon Custard64 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.