Name: Curacao
Ingredients: ½ pint boiling water; 3 ounces dried Seville orange peel, cut thin and pounded; 1 quart brandy; ¼ pint clarified sugar

Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Curacao

Ingredients

½ pint boiling water
3 ounces dried Seville orange peel, cut thin and pounded
1 quart brandy
¼ pint clarified sugar

Directions

Pour boiling water over the dried orange peel in a container and seal it tightly.
Once cooled, add the brandy and let it steep for 14 days.
Decant the mixture to remove solids and add the clarified sugar.

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.

Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Dried seville orange peel: Provides the main orange flavour and aroma as its oils and compounds dissolve into the liquid.
Brandy: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the peel and keeps the liqueur stable.
Clarified sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness extracted from the orange peel.