Name: Apple Drink
Ingredients: 4 sliced apples; 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or 3 cloves; 3 pints water; sugar or honey to taste

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Drink

Ingredients

4 sliced apples
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or 3 cloves
3 pints water
sugar or honey to taste

Directions

Simmer and strain

Boil the sliced apples with cinnamon or cloves in water for 30 minutes.
Sweeten with sugar or honey.
Strain the mixture to remove any sediment.

Serve

Let it cool and drink when experiencing a severe cold with fever.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples: Soften during boiling and release fruity flavour and natural sweetness into the water.
Cinnamon or cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the drink.
Sugar or honey: Adds sweetness to the drink.