Name: Cool Tankard
Ingredients: 1 quart home-brewed ale; ⅓ cup white wine; ⅓ cup brandy; ⅓ cup capillarie; juice of 1 lemon; lemon rind, shaved thin; 1 slice of bread, toasted very hard and dry; a few sprigs of borage or balm; a little grated nutmeg

Why it works: Lemon and borage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cool Tankard

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the ale, white wine, brandy, capillarie, lemon juice, and lemon rind.
Add the toasted bread on top.
Garnish with borage or balm and sprinkle grated nutmeg over the mixture.
Serve chilled.

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.

Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together102 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Borage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together76 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together620 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,832 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Home-brewed ale: Forms the liquid base and provides the main body of the drink.
White wine: Adds acidity and fruity flavour to the liquid base.
Brandy: Adds strong alcohol and aromatic depth to the drink.
Toasted bread: Floats on top and soaks up some of the liquid, adding a toasted flavour.

“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.