Name: Wine Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 2 cups granulated sugar; 1 pint rum or wine; boiling water

Why it works: Butter and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,007 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

½ cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar
1 pint rum or wine
boiling water

Directions

Cream the butter with the granulated sugar.
Pour in the rum or wine and enough boiling water to reach desired consistency.
Boil for 10 minutes and keep hot until needed.

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.

Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,007 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded body to the sauce.
Granulated sugar: Provides sweetness and helps give the sauce its body when creamed with butter.
Rum or wine: Supplies the main aroma and flavour that identifies the sauce.

“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.