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Drink

Cider Cup

A chilled drink made with cider, soda water, brandy, cucumber and lemon rinds, lemon juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cider Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Surround the cider and soda water with rough ice and let them cool for an hour.

  2. In a large jug, combine the brandy, cucumber rind, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sugar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the iced cider and soda water.

  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. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cider + cucumbertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together572 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cider
Forms the base liquid and gives the drink its apple flavour and mild tartness.
Soda water
Adds fizz and lightness, diluting the drink while keeping it bubbly.
Brandy
Adds alcohol, body and a warm, aromatic depth to the punch.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the lemon and cider.

The step that matters

Add the iced cider and soda water last, just before serving. Carbonation escapes quickly from warm or agitated liquid. Adding the chilled cider and soda at the end keeps the drink fizzy and cold, and stops the ice from diluting it too early.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, brandy, lemon, sugar. 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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