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Drink

Brown Caudle

A warm drink made from thick gruel, beer, spices, sugar, and gin or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caudle

  1. Strain the thick gruel into an equal quantity of clear strong beer.

  2. If the gruel is very thick, run the beer through the sieve while stirring.

  3. Set the mixture over the fire with a small pinch of allspice and stir until thoroughly mixed and just about to boil.

  4. Remove from heat and let it sit for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a jug, combine the gruel, 1 tablespoon of moist sugar, a little nutmeg, and 2 glasses of gin or more than 1 glass of brandy.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beer + allspicetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

  5. Beer + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Thick gruel
Gives the caudle its body and thickness as it is strained into the beer.
Clear strong beer
Thins the gruel and adds bitterness and body to the drink.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the beer and spirit.
Gin or brandy
Adds alcoholic strength and warming flavour to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture to just below boiling. Stirring while heating keeps the thickened gruel evenly dispersed, so it does not scorch on the base or form lumps. Stopping just before a boil preserves a smooth, uniform texture.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, sugar, nutmeg, gin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, sugar, nutmeg, gin. 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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