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Drink

Iced Lemonade

A chilled lemon drink made with citric acid, lemon essence, saccharin, and soda water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and borage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Iced Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavouring

  1. Dissolve citric acid, lemon essence, and saccharin tablets in boiling water, then shake well.

  2. Add 1–2 tablespoons of the mixture to a tumbler of soda water or iced soda water.

Add the lemon and spices

  1. Slice 2 lemons and add them to a pint of boiling water.

  2. Add 6 saccharin tablets and a grating of nutmeg.

  3. Let it cool.

Serve

  1. Once cold, add a sprig of borage, 2 bottles of soda water, and ½ pound of shaven ice.

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.

  1. Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Nutmeg + boragetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together76 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Citric acid
Provides the sharp, tart sourness that makes the drink taste like lemonade.
Lemons
Add acidity and fragrant citrus oils from the slices as they steep in the hot water.
Saccharin
Supplies sweetness in place of sugar, balancing the sourness of the citric acid.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, giving the drink its fizz and a lighter texture.
Shaven ice
Chills the drink quickly and dilutes it slightly as it melts.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, borage):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, borage. 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.

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