Name: A Birthday Syllabub
Ingredients: ½ pound sugar, broken small; juice of 2 fresh lemons; 2 cups port wine; 2 cups sherry

Why it works: Port wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 132 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

A Birthday Syllabub

Ingredients

½ pound sugar, broken small
juice of 2 fresh lemons
2 cups port wine
2 cups sherry

Directions

Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl and stir well to dissolve the sugar.
Add the port wine and sherry, and mix thoroughly.

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.

Port wine + sherrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,273 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + port winetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,100 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,141 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sugar: Sweetens the drink and, once dissolved, balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity and brightness that cut through the sweetness of the sugar and wine.
Port wine: Provides the main body, sweetness and fortified wine flavour of the drink.
Sherry: Adds dry, nutty wine character and lightens the sweetness of the port.