Name: Lavender-water
Ingredients: 1 pound lavender flowers; 1 quart water; 4 teaspoons best English lavender; 4 teaspoons oil of cloves; 5 grains musk; 6 ounces best spirits of wine; 1 ounce water

Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Lavender-water

Ingredients

Directions

Pick the lavender flowers from the stalks.
In a cold still, combine 1 pound of lavender flowers with 1 quart of water.
Distill very slowly over a low fire.
After distillation, clean the still and return the lavender water to it.
Distill the lavender water again slowly for double distillation.
Bottle the lavender water and cork it well until needed.
For another version, mix 4 teaspoons of best English lavender with a little spirit first.
Add 4 teaspoons of oil of cloves, 5 grains of musk, 6 ounces of spirits of wine, and 1 ounce of water.
Let the mixture stand, corked, for at least two months, shaking it frequently.

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.

Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Lavender + spirittop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together122 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,958 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).
Clove + spirittop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Lavender + clovetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).