Name: Red- or White-Currant Shrub
Ingredients: 2 quarts red or white currants; 1 quart rum; 6 ounces caster sugar

Why it works: Rum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Red- or White-Currant Shrub

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

2 quarts red or white currants
1 quart rum
6 ounces caster sugar

Directions

Prepare the currants

Remove the stalks and unsound fruit from the currants.
Place the currants in a large jar or earthenware crock.
Cover the jar.

Make the liquor

Place the jar in a saucepan of cold water.
Boil once.
Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Pass the liquor through a sieve.
Measure the liquor.

Add rum and sugar and bottle

For every pint of juice, add 1 quart of rum and 6 ounces of sugar while still warm.
Stir until the sugar dissolves.
Strain again through a tammy or flannel bag.
Pour the mixture into bottles.
Let it improve by keeping.

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.

Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
White currant + rumtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Red or white currants: Provide the tart juice that forms the base of the shrub.
Rum: Acts as a preservative and carries the fruit flavour in the finished drink.
Caster sugar: Sweetens the juice and balances its acidity.