Name: Raspberry Shrub
Ingredients: 1 quart raspberry juice; 1 quart currant juice; 1 quart granulated sugar

Why it works: Raspberry and currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 366 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Raspberry Shrub

Ingredients

1 quart raspberry juice
1 quart currant juice
1 quart granulated sugar

Directions

Make the shrub

Boil the raspberry juice, currant juice, and granulated sugar together for 5 minutes. Skim off any foam that forms on the surface.
Bottle the mixture while it is still hot.

Serve

To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the shrub with a tumbler of water.

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.

Raspberry + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together366 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,101 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Raspberry juice: Provides the main fruit flavor and a deep red color.
Currant juice: Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the fruit juices.