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Ginger-ale Julep

A chilled mint and lemon drink made with ginger ale, sugar, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger-ale Julep

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Put the sugar in a glass pitcher.

  2. Squeeze the lemon juice over the sugar.

  3. Set on ice until the sugar dissolves.

Build and serve

  1. Bruise the lower leaves of the mint by pinching them.

  2. Add the mint and pounded ice to the pitcher.

  3. Shake hard for 1 minute.

  4. Add the Ginger Ale and pour out immediately.

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.

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

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Mint + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the lemon juice to sweeten the drink.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the drink.
Mint
Bruised leaves release aroma into the drink.
Ginger ale
Adds carbonation and ginger flavour; poured in last to keep its fizz.

The step that matters

Add the Ginger Ale and pour out immediately. Carbonation escapes quickly once the bottle is opened and the drink is agitated, so the Ginger Ale should be added last and poured right away to keep the drink fizzy.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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