Name: A Most Excellent Remedy for a Cold
Ingredients: 1 large tea cup of linseed; 2 pennies worth of stick liquorice; ¼ pound of sun raisins; 2 quarts of soft water; ¼ pound of brown sugar candy, pounded; 1 tablespoon of old rum; 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar or lemon juice

Why it works: Rum and white wine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 103 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

1 large tea cup of linseed
2 pennies worth of stick liquorice
¼ pound of sun raisins
2 quarts of soft water
¼ pound of brown sugar candy, pounded
1 tablespoon of old rum
1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar or lemon juice

Directions

Combine linseed, stick liquorice, and sun raisins in a pot with soft water.
Simmer over low heat until reduced to 1 quart.
Stir in brown sugar candy, rum, and vinegar or lemon juice just before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Rum + white winetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together103 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tea + rumtop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together84 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + rumtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,907 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together12,480 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + rumtop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together153 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, sugar, rum, white wine):

Vanillabetter flavor fit
Pineapplebetter flavor fit
Applebetter flavor fit
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, sugar, rum, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).