Name: Grapefruit Cocktail
Ingredients: 2 grapefruits; sugar; iced grape juice

Why it works: Grapefruit and grape work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 79 recipes. Both carry 1-p-menthene-8-thiol, which smells grapefruit. The science ↓

Grapefruit Cocktail

Ingredients

2 grapefruits
sugar
iced grape juice

Directions

Prepare

Cut each grapefruit in half.
Remove the pulp in sections with a sharp knife and spoon, saving all the juice.

Macerate

Sprinkle the pulp with sugar and let it stand on ice for 30 minutes.

Serve

Fill cocktail glasses with the grapefruit mixture.
Pour 1 tablespoon of iced grape juice over each glass and serve immediately.

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.

Grapefruit + grapetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together79 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-p-menthene-8-thiol (grapefruit).
Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,490 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Grapefruit + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together309 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grapefruits: Provide the main fruit pulp and juice, giving the cocktail its tart, refreshing flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the grapefruit's tartness and draws out juice from the pulp.
Iced grape juice: Adds extra sweetness and cold liquid to each glass just before serving.