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Bobby Burns

Propose a toast on Burns Night with this delicious whisky cocktail. It’s stirred 16 times, but after one or two, who’s counting?

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,301 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 1
Prep30 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Chill a coupe or small cocktail glass in the freezer for 25 minutes.

  2. Put the 4 ice cubes into a mixing glass or cocktail shaker.

  3. Add the single malt whisky, sweet vermouth and the 2 dashes of herbal liqueur to the mixing glass over the ice.

  4. Stir gently with a bar spoon for about 30 seconds until well chilled and diluted.

  5. Take the chilled glass from the freezer and strain the cocktail into it.

  6. Hold the lemon twist over the drink, skin side down, and squeeze to release the oils, then drop it into the glass.

  7. Thread the glacé cherry onto a cocktail pick, place it in the drink, and serve immediately.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + cherrytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,301 recipes

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

  2. Vermouth + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Vermouth + cherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Malt whisky + lemontop 24% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Malt whisky + cherrytop 28% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cherry

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

  1. Orangebetter flavor fit
  2. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Cherrythe original
  4. Raspberryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against malt whisky, vermouth, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).