Name: White Currant Shrub
Ingredients: ¾ pound loaf sugar; 2 quarts white currant juice; 1 quart rum

Why it works: Sugar and rum 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 ↓

White Currant Shrub

Ingredients

¾ pound loaf sugar
2 quarts white currant juice
1 quart rum

Directions

Bruise the currants and place them in a bag to drip.
Dissolve the sugar in the white currant juice.
Add the rum and mix well.
Bottle the mixture for use.

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.

Sugar + rumtop 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).
Sugar + white curranttop 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

Loaf sugar: Dissolves into the juice to add sweetness and balance the tartness of the currants.
White currant juice: Provides the tart, fruity base that the sugar and rum are mixed into.
Rum: Acts as a preservative and adds aroma and warmth to the finished shrub.