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Drink

Japanese Cocktail

A chilled cocktail made with orgeat syrup, bitters, brandy, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,235 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Japanese Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cocktail

  1. In a small bar glass, combine orgeat syrup, bitters, and brandy.

  2. Fill the glass with ice and stir well with a spoon.

  3. Strain the mixture into a cocktail glass.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with lemon peel.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together561 recipes
  3. Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Provides the spirit base and warming body that carries the other flavors.
Orgeat syrup
Adds sweetness and a nutty almond flavor that balances the brandy.

The step that matters

Stir well with ice. Stirring chills and dilutes the drink while keeping it clear and smooth. Too little stirring leaves it warm, sharp, and unbalanced, because the water from melting ice is needed to soften the alcohol.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, brandy. 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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