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Drink

Claret Cup

A chilled claret-based drink with lemon rind, sugar, and soda water, optionally flavored with herbs and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a jug, combine the claret, sugar, and lemon rind. Cover and let it sit for 1 hour.

  2. Add balm, borage, or verbena, or a slice of cucumber, then pour in the soda water and add ice.

  3. Serve in glasses, optionally garnished with sliced nectarines, peaches, or raspberries.

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 + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sherry + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sherry + boragetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Forms the main wine base and supplies most of the drink's flavor and color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity and tannins.
Lemon rind
Its oils add bright citrus aroma as it steeps in the wine.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, making the drink lighter and livelier.

The step that matters

Adding the soda water. Soda water loses its carbonation quickly once poured and stirred, so add it last, just before serving, to keep the drink fizzy.

Swap the borage

The recipe marks borage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar, lemon, peach):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Boragethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar, lemon, peach. 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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