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Drink

Blue Blazer

A cocktail made with Scotch whiskey, boiling water, powdered sugar, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Blue Blazer

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the Scotch whiskey and boiling water in a large silver-plated mug.

  2. Ignite the liquid and carefully pour it back and forth between two mugs four or five times to mix.

  3. Sweeten with powdered sugar and serve in a small tumbler with a piece of lemon.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

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

Scotch whiskey
Provides the main spirit flavour and body of the drink.
Powdered white sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the whiskey's strength.

The step that matters

Igniting the liquid. The whiskey must be lit carefully and handled with care, since flaming alcohol can spread fire quickly. Pouring between mugs mixes the drink while the flame burns off some alcohol and warms the liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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