Name: Mango Pickle
Ingredients: 6 quarts sweet-wort; 3 lbs raisins; ½ lb candy; 1 pint brandy

Why it works: Wort and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry phenethyl acetate, which smells rose, honey. The science ↓

Mango Pickle

Ingredients

6 quarts sweet-wort
3 lbs raisins
½ lb candy
1 pint brandy

Directions

Boil sugar and water together for 10 minutes.
Skim the mixture well and pour it into a suitable pan or tub.
Allow it to cool, then mix it with the sweet-wort and tun.
Let the mixture stand for 3 days.
Transfer it to a barrel and let it ferment for another 3 days or more.
Bung up the cask and keep it undisturbed for 2 to 3 months.
After fermentation, add the whole raisins, candy, and brandy.
Bottle the wine after 6 months.

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.

Wort + brandytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18 recipes

Shared aroma: phenethyl acetate (rose, honey).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Wort + raisintop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).