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Drink

Hock Cup

A chilled cocktail made with hock wine, brandy, Curaçao or Benedictine, seltzer, lemon peel, and borage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Hock Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the hock wine and seltzer in a deep vessel surrounded by rough ice for about an hour.

Make and serve

  1. In a glass jug, combine the hock wine, old brandy, Curaçao or Benedictine, and seltzer.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Brandy + boragetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Hock wine
Forms the base of the drink, providing most of its volume and light, dry character.
Old brandy
Adds warmth and depth of flavor to the wine base.
Curaçao or benedictine
Adds sweetness and aromatic citrus or herbal notes.
Seltzer or soda water
Adds carbonation, giving the drink a lively, fizzy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the seltzer last, just before serving. Carbonation escapes quickly from warm liquid and fades with time, so chilling the ingredients and adding the seltzer close to serving keeps the drink fizzy and cold.

Swap the borage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, brandy, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Boragethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, brandy, lemon. 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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