Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
A Pleasant Drink, or Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Mix brown sugar, molasses, and tartaric acid in boiling water.
Strain the mixture and let it cool.
Make the drink
For each tumbler (2/3 full of water), add 2 tablespoons of the mixture and ½ teaspoon of soda.
Flavor with your choice of extract.
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.
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Brown sugar
- Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
- Molasses
- Adds deep flavor and color, plus extra sweetness.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds tartness and reacts with soda to produce fizz.
- Soda
- Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide bubbles.
The step that matters
Adding the soda to each tumbler. Soda reacts with the acid as soon as it is added, releasing carbon dioxide that makes the drink fizz. Adding it too early, or letting the drink sit before serving, lets the bubbles escape and the fizz fade.
“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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