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Drink

Buttered Toddy

A warm drink made with honey, lemon, nutmeg, rum, butter, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Buttered Toddy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix honey and lemon juice together in a bowl.

  2. Add grated nutmeg and rum, stirring well.

  3. In a mug, combine the mixture with fresh butter.

  4. Dilute with boiling water to taste.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Rum + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Honey + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together110 recipes

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

  5. Honey + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet and rich flavors.
Grated nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.
Rum
Forms the spirit base and carries the drink's warming flavor.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the drink.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, nutmeg, rum, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, nutmeg, rum, butter. 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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