Name: Lemonade
Ingredients: juice of 6 lemons; thin rind of 2 lemons; 1 ½ cups of syrup (30 degrees); 1 quart of spring water

Why it works: Lemon and syrup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,235 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemonade

Ingredients

juice of 6 lemons
thin rind of 2 lemons
1 ½ cups of syrup (30 degrees)
1 quart of spring water

Directions

Prepare

Juice the lemons and add the thin rind.
Mix in the syrup and spring water.
Allow the mixture to stand covered for 1 hour.

Serve

Decant and serve over ice.
Adjust water to taste if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 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

Lemon juice: Provides the sharp acidity that defines the lemonade's flavor.
Lemon rind: Adds aromatic oils that deepen the lemon fragrance and flavor.
Syrup: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Spring water: Dilutes the juice and syrup to set the final strength and volume.

“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.