Name: Claret Cup
Ingredients: 6-8 lumps of sugar; 1 bottle of claret; 2 slices of hard lemon; 1 glass of sherry; 1 tablespoon brandy; small piece of cucumber peel; 1 tablespoon noyau or maraschino; optional: balm and borage

Why it works: Cucumber and borage share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pour a few drops of boiling water over the sugar to dissolve it.
In a large pitcher, combine the dissolved sugar, claret, lemon slices, sherry, brandy, cucumber peel, and noyau or maraschino. Stir well to mix all ingredients.

Serve

If desired, add balm and borage for extra flavor.
Serve chilled over ice.

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.

Cucumber + boragetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together44 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together102 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,067 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sherry + boragetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Claret: Forms the wine base and supplies the drink's main body and flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the wine's acidity and the lemon.
Lemon: Adds acidity and brightness that lift the wine-based flavor.
Sherry: Adds depth and extra body to the wine base.
Brandy: Adds alcoholic strength and warm, rich aroma.
Noyau or maraschino: Adds a sweet, almond-like or cherry aroma that rounds out the drink.

Swap the borage

The recipe marks borage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, sherry, brandy, cucumber):

Boragethe original
Cinnamonfits about as well
Peppermintfits less well
Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, sherry, brandy, cucumber. 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.