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Rum Shrub

A sweet citrus syrup made by macerating oranges with sugar and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and rum work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 801 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Rum Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the lumps of sugar on the rinds of the oranges and place them in a large bottle.

  2. Squeeze the juice from the oranges, strain it, and add to the bottle.

  3. Pour in the rum.

Age and bottle

  1. Let it sit for six weeks.

  2. To ensure clarity, filter through paper and bottle.

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. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Seville oranges
Provide tart acidity and aromatic oils from the rinds and juice.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp citrus acidity.
Old rum
Extracts flavor from the oranges and acts as the preserving base.

The step that matters

Let it sit for six weeks. Alcohol slowly draws aromatic oils from the rinds and the sugar gradually dissolves and blends with the juice. Cutting the resting time short leaves the shrub harsh, unbalanced and less fragrant.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum. 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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