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Drink

A Very Agreeable Drink

A simple drink made with capillaire, vinegar, tamarinds or currants, scalded currants or cranberries, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

A Very Agreeable Drink

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour 1 tablespoon of capillaire into a tumbler of fresh cold water.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of good vinegar.

  3. Include tamarinds, fresh currants, jelly currants, or scalded cranberries.

  4. Sweeten with sugar if desired.

  5. Stir well and enjoy.

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. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + tamarindtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Tamarind + curranttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Capillaire
Adds sweetness and flavour to the cold water.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the drink its tang.
Tamarinds or currants
Add tartness and fruity flavour to the drink.
Sugar
Adds optional sweetness to balance the vinegar's sourness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, tamarind, sugar):

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, tamarind, sugar. 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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