Name: Nectar Syrup
Ingredients: 1 gallon pineapple syrup; 1 gallon strawberry syrup; 1 gallon lemon syrup; 6 drops bitter almond oil; 1 ounce deep red color; soda foam

Why it works: Pineapple and strawberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 433 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Nectar Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Combine 1 gallon each of pineapple, strawberry, and lemon syrups in a large container.
Add 6 drops of bitter almond oil and 1 ounce of deep red color, then mix well and serve with soda foam.

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.

Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Strawberry + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pineapple + almondtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together428 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple syrup: Provides the main fruit flavor and sweetness as the base of the blend.
Strawberry syrup: Adds sweetness and fruity aroma to the blend.
Lemon syrup: Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the other syrups.
Bitter almond oil: Contributes a strong aromatic almond note in very small amounts.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, syrup, strawberry, almond):

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Peachfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, syrup, strawberry, almond. 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.