Name: Cherry Red
Ingredients: 1 ounce cudbear; 1½ cups water; 1 ounce cream of tartar; 1½ ounces spirits of wine; 1 ounce alum; 1 ounce oil of tartar

Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Cherry Red

Ingredients

Directions

Boil cudbear in water over low heat until reduced to 1 cup.
Add cream of tartar and simmer again.
When cold, strain and add spirits of wine.
For color, mix with acid for red or alkali for green.
To extract color from madder, tie it in a cloth and beat in water, repeating until 4-5 pints are used.
Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, then add dissolved alum and oil of tartar.
Let it settle, wash the sediment, and dry it.

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.

Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Cream + spirittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together99 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).