Name: Lavender Water
Ingredients: 2 ounces lavender oil; ½ ounce lemon oil; ½ ounce bergamot oil; ¼ ounce clove oil; 1 ounce musk extract; 1 pint white rose extract; 5 pints cologne spirits; 1 pint water

Why it works: Lavender and bergamot work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lavender Water

Ingredients

Directions

Combine all oils, extracts, cologne spirits, and water in a large container.
Let the mixture stand for 10 days.
After 10 days, filter the mixture to remove any solids.

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.

Lavender + bergamottop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together82 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Bergamot + rosetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bergamot + spirittop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + bergamottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together108 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lavender, lemon, bergamot, rose, spirit):

Rosemaryfits better
Thymefits better
Mintfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lavender, lemon, bergamot, rose, spirit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.