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Drink

Flip

A fermented ale-based drink mixed with eggs, sugar, ginger or nutmeg, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Flip

Why it works: Ginger and rum work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 229 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Warm the ale in a pot until near boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and grated ginger or nutmeg.

Combine and blend

  1. Pour the warm ale into one pitcher and the egg mixture and rum into another.

  2. Quickly turn the contents from one pitcher to the other until smooth and creamy.

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.

  1. Ginger + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + rumtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken and enrich the drink, giving it a smooth, creamy body when combined with warm liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the alcohol.
Ale
Provides the warm, malty liquid base that is combined with the eggs.
Rum or brandy
Supplies the spirit base and strong alcoholic character of the drink.

The step that matters

Quickly turn the contents from one pitcher to the other. Pouring the hot ale into the egg mixture too slowly, or without mixing, can cause the eggs to scramble or curdle. Moving the liquid quickly between pitchers keeps the eggs dispersed so the drink stays smooth.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, rum):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum. 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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