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Soda Beer

A homemade soda beer made with strong beer, molasses, brown sugar, tartaric acid, and flavored essences.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar 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 ↓

Soda Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a large pot, combine the strong beer, molasses, and brown sugar.

  2. Simmer the mixture, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.

Flavour and bottle

  1. Dissolve the tartaric acid in the water.

  2. Add the dissolved tartaric acid and the essences of lemon, wintergreen, and sassafras to the pot.

  3. Bottle the mixture, cork it, and secure with twine.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Beer + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Beer + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Beer + molassestop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon 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

Strong beer
Provides the fermented-malt base and character of the drink.
Molasses
Adds dark color, depth, and sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that gives the drink its tang.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, molasses, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, molasses, sugar. 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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