Name: Dysentery Syrup
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons best turkey rhubarb; 2 teaspoons leptendrin; 1 pound white sugar; 1 pint hot water; 1 teaspoon essence of peppermint; 1 teaspoon essence of anise; 2 teaspoons tincture of catechu

Why it works: Rhubarb and anise share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dysentery Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Mix turkey rhubarb, leptendrin, and white sugar in hot water until well combined.
Add essence of peppermint, essence of anise, and tincture of catechu.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly.
For dysentery, take 1 teaspoonful every half hour.

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 + anisetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Peppermint + anisetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Rhubarb + pepperminttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together68 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,852 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + anisetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together328 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

Swap the anise

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, rhubarb, sugar, peppermint):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Nutmegfits better
Anisethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, rhubarb, sugar, peppermint. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.