Name: Lemonade
Ingredients: 6 lemons; 1 lemon rind (peeled thin); syrup made with loaf sugar and water or sugar-candy; water

Why it works: Lemon and syrup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,235 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemonade

Ingredients

6 lemons
1 lemon rind (peeled thin)
syrup made with loaf sugar and water or sugar-candy
water

Directions

Pour boiling water over the juice of the lemons and the lemon rind in a container.
Cover it tightly and let it steep.
Add syrup to taste and dilute with water as desired.
Strain the mixture through a flannel bag before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon juice: Provides the sharp acidity that gives the lemonade its characteristic tang.
Lemon rind: Releases aromatic oils during steeping that add fragrance and flavour to the liquid.
Loaf sugar syrup: Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the lemon juice.

“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.