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Claret Cup

A chilled claret-based cocktail with soda water, lemon, sugar, nutmeg, brandy, sherry, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine claret, soda water, lemon slices, powdered sugar, grated nutmeg, brandy, and sherry wine in a large pitcher.

  2. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Add a large piece of ice to chill the mixture for at least 30 minutes 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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, supplying most of the drink's body, acidity and flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the drink and dissolves quickly in the wine for an even sweetness.
Brandy
Adds spirit strength and warm, aromatic depth to the wine base.
Sherry wine
Adds nutty, fortified-wine depth and extra body to the blend.

The step that matters

Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Powdered sugar dissolves easily, but undissolved grains left at the bottom make the drink unevenly sweet. Stirring before the ice goes in gives every glass the same sweetness.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, brandy, sherry, wine. 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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