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Pear and Ginger Cocktail

A chilled cocktail made with pears, ginger, ginger syrup, sherry wine, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pear and Ginger Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ripe pears into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine the sliced ginger root, ginger syrup, and sherry wine.

  3. Add a little powdered sugar to taste and mix carefully.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the mixture thoroughly.

  2. Serve in cocktail glasses.

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 + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pear + sherrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Pear + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 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

Ripe pears
Provide the fruity base and natural sweetness of the drink.
Sliced ginger root
Adds a sharp, spicy aroma and a warm bite.
Ginger syrup
Sweetens the drink and spreads ginger flavor evenly through the liquid.
Sherry wine
Adds liquid, aromatic depth and a dry, nutty note.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture thoroughly. Cold slows evaporation of aromatics and mellows the sharpness of the ginger, so the flavors blend smoothly instead of tasting harsh or unbalanced.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, syrup, sherry, wine, sugar. 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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