Name: Tincture of Rhubarb
Ingredients: 2 ounces rhubarb powder; ½ ounce cardamom seeds, husked; 2 ounces powdered opodeldoc; 2 ounces soap shavings; ½ ounce oil of rosemary; 1 drachm camphor; 1 pint strong rectified spirit of wine

Why it works: Rhubarb and cardamom share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Tincture of Rhubarb

Ingredients

Directions

Combine rhubarb powder and cardamom seeds in a jar.
Add 2 pints of water and let it digest for seven to eight days.
Strain the mixture.
Dissolve the soap shavings in the spirit of wine.
Add the camphor and oil of rosemary to the dissolved soap, shaking well to combine.

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.

Rhubarb + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together35 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together23 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Rosemary + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together895 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Camphor + spirittop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together207 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cardamom, rosemary, camphor, spirit, wine):

Cinnamonfits better
Clovefits better
Thymefits better
Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cardamom, rosemary, camphor, spirit, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.