Name: Anisette De Bourdeaux
Ingredients: 9 ounces sugar; 6 drops oil of aniseed; 2 pints rectified spirit; 4 pints water

Why it works: Sugar and spirit work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Anisette De Bourdeaux

Ingredients

9 ounces sugar
6 drops oil of aniseed
2 pints rectified spirit
4 pints water

Directions

Rub together the sugar and oil of aniseed.
Gradually add the rectified spirit and water.
Filter the mixture for use.

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.

Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Sweetens the liqueur and helps the aniseed oil mix evenly when rubbed together.
Oil of aniseed: Provides the characteristic licorice-like aroma and flavour of the anisette.
Rectified spirit: Alcohol that dissolves the aniseed oil so its flavour carries through the diluted liquid.

“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.