Name: Compound Bitters
Ingredients: 6 pounds tamarack bark; 4 pounds prickly-ash bark; 3 pounds wild-cherry bark; 3 pounds Seneca snake root; 1 pound tanzy; 1 pound Socotorine aloes; 3 pints boiling water; 2 quarts Holland gin; 1 pint molasses

Why it works: Gin and molasses work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Compound Bitters

Ingredients

Directions

Pulverize and mix the tamarack bark, prickly-ash bark, wild-cherry bark, Seneca snake root, tanzy, and Socotorine aloes.
Take one-quarter of a pound of the mixture.
Add 3 pints of boiling water, 2 quarts of Holland gin, and 1 pint of molasses.
Let the mixture stand for one week.
Take half a wineglassful three times a day.

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.

Gin + molassestop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Cherry + molassestop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together94 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).