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Drink

Loving Cup

A chilled cocktail made with champagne, Madeira, French brandy, water, sugar, lemon, balm, and borage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and borage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Loving Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons and sugar

  1. Rub the peel off one lemon with some lumps of sugar.

  2. Remove all pith from the first lemon.

  3. Remove the rind and pith from the second lemon.

  4. Slice the lemons thinly.

Make the cup

  1. In a jug, combine the balm, borage, sliced lemons, and all the sugar.

  2. Add the water, Madeira, and brandy to the jug.

  3. Cover the jug and surround it with ice.

  4. Let it sit for about 1 hour.

  5. Surround the champagne with ice.

  6. Add the champagne to the mixture when ready to 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. Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Champagne + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Champagne + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Champagne + boragetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Brandy + boragetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Champagne
Adds sparkle and a dry, bright character to the finished drink.
Madeira
Contributes sweetness and a nutty, oxidised depth of flavour.
French brandy
Adds alcoholic strength and warm, aromatic body to the punch.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fragrant oils from the peel that brighten the drink.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the drink and draws flavour out of the lemon peel.

The step that matters

Rubbing the peel off the lemon with sugar. Lemon oils are held in the peel, and rubbing it with sugar lifts them into the crystals so they dissolve into the drink. Pith left in the mixture adds bitterness, so it must be removed.

Swap the borage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, brandy, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Boragethe original
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, brandy, sugar, lemon. 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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