Name: Cool Tankard
Ingredients: 1 quart home-brewed ale; ⅓ cup white wine; ⅓ cup brandy; ⅓ cup capillaire; juice of 1 lemon; lemon rind, shaved thin; 1 slice of bread, toasted very hard and dry; a few sprigs of borage or balm; a little grated nutmeg

Why it works: Lemon and borage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cool Tankard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tankard

In a large bowl, combine the ale, white wine, brandy, capillaire, lemon juice, and lemon rind.
Add the toasted bread on top.

Garnish and serve

Garnish with borage or balm and sprinkle with grated nutmeg.
Serve chilled.

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.

Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together102 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Borage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together76 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together620 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,832 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Home-brewed ale: Forms the base liquid and provides the main body of the drink.
White wine: Adds acidity and a light fruity character to the base.
Brandy: Adds alcoholic strength and warming aroma to the drink.
Capillaire: Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the drink and balances the sweetness.
Toasted bread: Soaks up liquid and releases flavour into the drink as it sits.

“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.