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Whisky Shrub

A fermented fruit syrup mixed with whisky, lemon, orange, and porter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Whisky Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by dissolving brown sugar in water.

  2. Let the syrup cool.

Combine and age

  1. In a jar, combine the cooled syrup with whisky, lemon juice, orange juice, and porter.

  2. Shake the mixture well every day for a week.

  3. Allow the mixture to stand for 5 weeks to fine before bottling.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Whisky + orangetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together187 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + whiskytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and body, balancing the sharp citrus acidity.
Lemons
Supply acidity and bright citrus flavour that defines the shrub.
Seville oranges
Add acidity and a bitter citrus aroma to the blend.
Whisky or silent spirit
Acts as the preserving alcohol and carries the flavour of the drink.
Porter
Adds roasted malt flavour and colour to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Shake the mixture well every day for a week. Daily shaking keeps the sugar, juice and alcohol evenly mixed, so the sugar dissolves fully and the flavours blend rather than separating in the jar.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, whisky, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, whisky, orange. 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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