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Drink

Claret Cup

A chilled cocktail made with claret, curaçao, brandy, lemonade, soda water, cucumber, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,067 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix claret, curaçao, brandy, lemonade, and soda water together.

  2. Add cucumber slices, let sit for 10 minutes, then remove them.

  3. Just before serving, gently stir in the sugar.

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. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Brandy + cucumbertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Claret
Forms the wine base that gives the cup its body and main flavour.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic strength and warmth to the drink.
Curaçao
Adds orange sweetness and aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the wine and citrus.
Lemonade
Adds sweetness and acidity while diluting the wine.

The step that matters

Stirring in the sugar. Sugar dissolves slowly in cold liquid, so it is added just before serving. Gentle stirring keeps the soda water and lemonade from losing their fizz.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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