Name: Spirit of Barbadoes Cream
Ingredients: 14 Seville oranges, raspings; 8 China oranges, raspings; 8 lemons, raspings; ¼ ounce mace; 8 pints brandy; 1 pint water; 16 cloves; ¼ ounce cinnamon, pounded

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spirit of Barbadoes Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rasp the oranges and lemons.
Pound the mace, cloves, and cinnamon.

Distill

Combine all ingredients in a still.
Distill to draw 4½ pints of spirits.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Seville oranges: Supply the aromatic oil and bitter citrus flavour from their zest.
China oranges: Add sweeter citrus aroma from their zest to balance the bitterness.
Lemons: Contribute bright, sharp citrus aroma from their zest.
Brandy: Acts as the alcoholic base that dissolves and carries the citrus and spice aromas.
Mace: Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the distilled spirit.
Cloves: Add pungent, warm aromatic spice to the distilled spirit.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, lemon, brandy, clove, cinnamon):

Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Nutmegfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, brandy, clove, cinnamon. 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.