Name: Summer Drink
Ingredients: 4 quarts lemonade; 1 pint pineapple juice; 1 pint strawberry juice or raspberry juice; thin slices of lemon; a few berries

Why it works: Pineapple and strawberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 433 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Summer Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the lemonade, pineapple juice, and strawberry or raspberry juice in a large pitcher.
Add thin slices of lemon and a few berries for garnish.
Stir well and serve chilled.

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.

Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Strawberry + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,206 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lemonade: Forms the liquid base and provides the main sweet-tart flavor.
Pineapple juice: Adds sweetness and a fruity, tropical flavor to the blend.
Strawberry or raspberry juice: Adds berry flavor and a pink color to the drink.