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Drink

Compound Lemonade

A refreshing drink made from barley water, syrup, lemon peel, water, and optional sherry or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Compound Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine barley water, syrup, and lemon peel.

  2. Simmer the mixture for a short time.

  3. Strain the mixture into a decanter.

  4. Add more water to taste, and sherry wine or brandy if desired.

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. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Barley + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Barley + syruptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley water
Forms the liquid base of the drink.
Syrup
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon's acidity.
Lemon peel
Adds aroma and citrus flavor from its oils.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, syrup, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, syrup, sherry. 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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