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Drink

Alkaline Drink

A citrusy, sweetened beverage made with lemon rind, powdered sugar, boiling water, Vichy water, and common water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Alkaline Drink

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the lemon rind in a jug.

  2. Add the powdered sugar-candy.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and stir until dissolved.

  4. Add the Vichy water and common water, and mix well.

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

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

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

Powdered sugar-candy
Adds sweetness, and dissolves quickly in the hot water.
Lemon rind
Adds aroma and flavour from the oils in its peel.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar-candy in boiling water. Hot water dissolves sugar far faster than cold. Stirring until no crystals remain keeps the drink smooth, since undissolved sugar stays gritty and does not blend in once the other waters are added.

“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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