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Drink

Sauterne Cup

A chilled cocktail made with Sauterne wine, soda water, citrus rinds, orange Curaçao, sugar, mint, orange slices, and strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sauterne Cup

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sauterne Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine orange rind, lemon rind, orange Curaçao, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Cover and let stand for 2 hours.

  3. Add Sauterne wine and strain the mixture.

  4. Chill the strained mixture on ice.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, add chilled soda water, mint leaves, orange slices, and strawberries.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together549 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cup and balances the acidity of the citrus and wine.
Orange curaçao
Adds orange aroma and a sweet citrus flavor to the base.
Sauterne wine
Provides the main wine body and a sweet, mellow flavor.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, giving the cup lightness and a fizzy texture.
Strawberries
Contribute fruity sweetness and aroma to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Adding the soda water just before serving. Carbonation escapes quickly from warm or stirred liquids, so adding chilled soda water at the last moment keeps the cup fizzy and cold.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, orange, lemon, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, orange, lemon, sugar. 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.

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