Name: Smokers’ Drink. No. 1.
Ingredients: 1 coffee cup very strong Mocha coffee; sugar to taste; pure cognac; cold water

Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Smokers’ Drink. No. 1.

Ingredients

1 coffee cup very strong Mocha coffee
sugar to taste
pure cognac
cold water

Directions

Place a large tumbler in front of you.
Pour in the hot Mocha coffee.
Add sugar according to your taste.
Add a dash of pure cognac.
Fill the tumbler with cold water and stir well before drinking.

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.

Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,344 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

Mocha coffee: Provides the strong coffee base and bitter flavor that defines the drink.
Cognac: Adds a small amount of alcohol and aroma to the coffee.

“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.