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Drink

Claret Cup

A chilled cocktail of claret, seltzer, herbs, orange, cucumber, cognac, and sugar candy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Borage and cucumber share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make and chill

  1. Combine all ingredients in a covered jug immersed in ice, then stir with a silver spoon.

  2. Let the mixture chill for about 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain or decant to remove herbs and serve.

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. Borage + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Borage + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Orange + cucumbertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Borage + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Forms the wine base, supplying most of the body, tannin and fruit flavour.
Cognac
Adds warmth and aromatic depth to the wine base.
Bruised sugar candy
Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity and tannin.
Orange
Adds citrus aroma and a bright acidity that lifts the drink.
German seltzer water
Adds fizz and lightness, diluting the wine slightly.

The step that matters

Strain before serving. Chilling lets the herbs and fruit infuse gently into the wine. Straining afterward stops prolonged steeping from making the herbs taste bitter or the drink cloudy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against borage, cucumber, 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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