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Drink

Loving Cup

A spiced wine beverage made with cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, sugar, and fortified wines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Loving Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spice infusion

  1. Mix cloves, allspice, and cinnamon with 1 pint of water.

  2. Boil until reduced to one-third, then strain.

Blend and serve

  1. Add sherry, Madeira, port, claret, lemon juice, loaf sugar, grated nutmegs, and 1 quart of water.

  2. Flavor with spices to taste.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Sherry
Adds fortified wine body and dry, nutty depth to the punch.
Madeira
Contributes caramel and nutty notes that round out the wine blend.
Port
Adds sweetness and fuller body to the wine base.
Claret
Provides dry red wine structure and tannin for balance.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the wine and balances the sugar.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the acidity and wine tannin.

The step that matters

Flavor with spices to taste. Spices such as clove, allspice, and nutmeg are strong and volatile, and their intensity grows with steeping and boiling. Adding them gradually and tasting as you go keeps the punch from becoming bitter or overpowering.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, cinnamon, sherry, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, cinnamon, sherry, sugar, nutmeg. 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.

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