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Drink

Claret Cup

A chilled alcoholic beverage made with claret, spring water, sherry, herbs, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Borage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine claret, spring water, sherry, balm, burnet, borage, verbena, lemon peel, and sugar in a jug.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  4. Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours before serving.

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. Borage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sherry + boragetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Claret
Forms the wine base that carries the flavour of the whole cup.
Sherry
Adds depth and a dry, nutty richness to the wine base.
Lemon peel
Contributes aromatic citrus oils that brighten the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity and tannin of the wine.

Swap the borage

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Boragethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, 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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