Name: Medical or Root Beer
Ingredients: Sassafras root; Burdock root; Wild cherry tree bark (from the root); Root of black alder; Molasses or honey; Yeast

Why it works: Burdock and molasses work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Medical or Root Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the sassafras root, burdock root, wild cherry tree bark, and black alder root in water for several hours to make a strong decoction.
Strain the mixture and sweeten it well with molasses or honey.
When the mixture is blood warm, add sufficient yeast to ferment it.
Allow it to ferment until bubbles form, then it is ready to use.

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.

Burdock + molassestop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together17 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together94 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Burdock + cherrytop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).