Name: Ginger Beer
Ingredients: 3 lbs loaf sugar; 2 oz cream of tartar; 4 lemons, peeled and sliced; 1 lb ginger, bruised; 3 gallons boiling water; whites of 2 eggs

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Mix the sugar, cream of tartar, lemons, and ginger in a large bowl.
Pour in the boiling water and stir well with a wooden spoon.
Use the egg whites to clarify the mixture.
Transfer the mixture to an earthenware jar.

Strain and stand

Strain it through a cloth into a second jar.
Let it stand overnight.

Bottle

Bottle the ginger beer the next morning in stone bottles.

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.

Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Loaf sugar: Provides sweetness and food for the fermentation that makes the drink fizzy.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps balance the sugar.
Ginger: Supplies the main spicy aroma and flavour of the drink.
Lemons: Add acidity and citrus aroma to brighten the drink.
Egg whites: Bind fine particles so they can be removed, clarifying the liquid.