Name: West Indian Shrub
Ingredients: ½ pint pure lime juice; 1 quart old rum; 1½ pounds sugar

Why it works: Lime and rum work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 412 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

West Indian Shrub

Ingredients

½ pint pure lime juice
1 quart old rum
1½ pounds sugar

Directions

Mix the sugar and lime juice together.
Add the rum to the mixture.
Put the mixture in a jar to mellow.

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.

Lime + rumtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together412 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,332 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharp lime juice and the alcohol.
Pure lime juice: Provides the sour acidity that defines the drink's flavour.
Old rum: Supplies the alcohol and the main aroma and body of the drink.