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Drink

Blue Blazers

A flaming whiskey drink made by igniting rye whiskey and pouring it over a mixture of sugar, lemon, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and lemon work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Blue Blazers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In one silver tankard, pour the rye whiskey.

  2. In another tankard, combine the sugar, lemon squeeze, and boiling water.

Make the drink

  1. Set the whiskey on fire.

  2. Quickly pour the flaming whiskey from one tankard to the other, creating a stream of fire.

  3. After a few passes, serve the drink to the customer.

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. Rye + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rye + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rye whiskey
Forms the alcoholic base and carries the main flavour of the drink.
Sugar cubes
Provides sweetness to balance the whiskey and lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the drink and balances the sweetness.
Boiling water
Dissolves the sugar and dilutes the drink to a drinkable strength.

The step that matters

Quickly pour the flaming whiskey. The flame is fed by alcohol vapour rising from the liquid, so the flaming whiskey must be poured promptly while it is still burning. A quick, steady pour keeps the stream of fire going and helps avoid spilling burning liquid.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, 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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