Name: Apple Wine
Ingredients: 1 barrel of cider; scurlea herb; 1 teaspoon of nitre; 1 pound of honey syrup

Why it works: Cider and honey work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 256 recipes. Both carry ethyl decanoate, which smells grape, waxy. The science ↓

Apple Wine

Ingredients

1 barrel of cider
scurlea herb
1 teaspoon of nitre
1 pound of honey syrup

Directions

Add the scurlea herb, nitre, and honey syrup to the barrel of cider.
Let the mixture ferment in the cask until it is clear and well settled. Once settled, draw off the liquid.
The resulting apple wine will be similar to Rhenish in clarity, color, and flavor.

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.

Cider + honeytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together256 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).
Honey + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together325 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cider + syruptop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together125 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).