Name: Currant Shrub
Ingredients: 2 quarts currant juice; 1 gallon rum; 2 pounds lump sugar

Why it works: Currant and rum work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 155 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Shrub

Ingredients

2 quarts currant juice
1 gallon rum
2 pounds lump sugar

Directions

Prepare

Strip the fruit and prepare it in a jar as for jelly.
Strain the juice.

Make the shrub

Combine the juice with rum and sugar.
Strain through a jelly bag until clear.
Bottle the mixture.

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.

Currant + rumtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together155 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Currant juice: Provides the tart, fruity flavour that forms the base of the shrub.
Rum: Acts as a preservative and carries the aroma of the drink.
Lump sugar: Sweetens the mixture and balances the acidity of the currant juice.