Name: Liver Bitters
Ingredients: 2 ounces hops; 2 ounces buchu leaves; 2 ounces dandelion root; 1 ounce mandrake root; 1 ounce rhubarb root; 2 ounces juniper berries; 1 pint alcohol; 1 pound loaf sugar (optional, made into simple syrup)

Why it works: Dandelion and rhubarb share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Liver Bitters

Ingredients

Directions

Put hops, buchu leaves, dandelion root, mandrake root, rhubarb root, and juniper berries in a stone jar.
Pour 4 quarts of hot water over the ingredients and cover.
Let it stand on the stove for 24 hours without boiling.
Evaporate the mixture to about 2 quarts.
Strain the mixture and let it cool.
Add the alcohol and mix well.
Shake the bottle vigorously before sealing it tightly.
For those who prefer, add 1 pound of simple syrup.
Take 1 tablespoonful as an ordinary dose, or 3 spoonfuls within an hour for chills.

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.

Dandelion + rhubarbtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Rhubarb + syruptop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together115 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Dandelion + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together80 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, buchu, dandelion, sugar, syrup):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Rhubarbthe original
Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, buchu, dandelion, sugar, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.