Name: Summer Champagne
Ingredients: 4 cups seltzer water; 1 cup Moselle wine (or hock); 2 teaspoons powdered sugar

Why it works: Wine and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Summer Champagne

Ingredients

4 cups seltzer water
1 cup Moselle wine (or hock)
2 teaspoons powdered sugar

Directions

In a large pitcher, combine 4 cups of seltzer water with 1 cup of Moselle wine (or hock).
Pour the mixture into a wine glass.
Add 2 teaspoons of powdered sugar to the glass and stir gently.
Enjoy your refreshing summer champagne.

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.

Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Seltzer water: Adds carbonation, producing the bubbles and lightness that make this drink sparkle.
Moselle wine: Supplies the wine flavour and acidity that give the drink its character.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness, and dissolves quickly in the liquid because it is finely ground.

“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.