Skip to main content
Drink

Mock Arrack, &C

A sweet, citrusy alcoholic beverage made with sugar, lemon, water, Madeira or sherry, rum, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and rum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Mock Arrack, &C

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Zest the lemon and mix it with the loaf sugar.

  2. Squeeze the lemon juice into the sugar and mix thoroughly.

  3. Add 1 cup of boiling water and stir until cold.

  4. Mix in equal parts of Madeira or sherry, rum, and brandy.

  5. Add more boiling water to achieve the desired strength.

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. Sherry + rumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to give the drink its sweetness.
Lemon
Zest and juice add aroma and sharp acidity that balance the sugar and spirits.
Madeira or sherry
Adds a nutty, oxidised wine flavour and some body to the blend.
Rum
Contributes warm, sweet spirit character and alcoholic strength.
Brandy
Adds fruity, rounded spirit depth and alcoholic strength.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, rum, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes