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Drink

Locomotive

A hot cocktail made with honey, eggs, cloves, curaçao, and red burgundy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and clove work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 736 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Locomotive

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine honey, egg yolks, essence of cloves, and curaçao in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture well with a whisk.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the red burgundy until hot, then whisk it into the bowl.

  2. Serve hot in glasses.

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. Honey + clovetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together736 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Honey + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + clovetop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Egg and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,584 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the warm mixture and give it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the wine.
Red burgundy
Provides the main liquid and wine flavour, and its acidity cuts the sweetness.
Curaçao
Adds sweet orange flavour and aroma to the drink.

The step that matters

Whisking the hot wine into the egg mixture. Adding very hot wine too quickly can scramble the egg yolks, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, thickened drink. Whisking constantly while pouring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the yolks smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, egg. 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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