Name: Excellent Shrub, As Made in the West-Indies
Ingredients: 12 pounds best moist sugar; 3 quarts lime juice; 9 quarts rum; a few pints brandy (optional)

Why it works: Rum and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Excellent Shrub, As Made in the West-Indies

Ingredients

12 pounds best moist sugar
3 quarts lime juice
9 quarts rum
a few pints brandy (optional)

Directions

Make a syrup by dissolving the sugar in water.
Add the lime juice and rum to the syrup. Mix well and fine the liquid as you would wine.
For an improvement, add a few pints of brandy with less rum.

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 + brandytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lime + rumtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together412 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lime + brandytop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Best moist sugar: Dissolved to make the syrup that sweetens and balances the sharp lime and strong rum.
Lime juice: Supplies the sour acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Rum: Provides the spirit base and alcohol that preserves and gives the drink its strength.
Brandy: Adds extra depth and aroma when used in place of part of the rum.