Name: Caraway
Ingredients: 7 quarts rectified malt spirits; 3 pennyweights oil of caraway; 2 ounces cassia; 2 pounds loaf sugar; ½ cup spirit of wine; water to fill the vessel

Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Caraway

Ingredients

Directions

Pound the cassia and caraway seeds well.
Steep them in 1 quart of the spirit for 3 to 4 days.
Treat the oil of caraway as directed for peppermint.
Fill the vessel with water after combining all ingredients.

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.

Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Caraway + cassiatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together325 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Spirit + carawaytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Spirit + cassiatop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the cassia

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

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Clovefits better
Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, spirit, caraway, sugar, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.