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Drink

Rum Flip

A sweet alcoholic beverage made with ale, eggs, sugar, spices, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rum Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a mortar, combine grated ginger, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

  2. Heat the ale in a pot until nearly boiling.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and spices.

Combine and smooth

  1. Pour the hot ale into the egg mixture and stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture back and forth between two pitchers until smooth.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Thicken the drink and give it a rich, creamy body when gently heated.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the ale and rum.
Ale
Provides the liquid base and a malty flavor.
Good old rum or brandy
Adds alcohol warmth and aroma to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Pour the hot ale into the egg mixture and stir well. Adding hot liquid to beaten eggs can scramble them if poured too fast or not stirred. Stirring constantly while pouring gently tempers the eggs so they blend smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, rum. 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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