Name: Gin and Molasses
Ingredients: gin; 1 tablespoon New Orleans molasses; hot water

Why it works: Gin and molasses work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gin and Molasses

Ingredients

gin
1 tablespoon New Orleans molasses
hot water

Directions

Prepare

Pour enough gin into a whiskey glass to cover the bottom.
Add 1 tablespoon of New Orleans molasses.
Place a spoon in the glass for stirring.

Serve

Allow the customer to help themselves from the gin bottle.

Clean

Use hot water to cleanse the glass.

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.

Gin + molassestop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 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

Gin: Provides the spirit base and botanical aroma that defines the drink.
New orleans molasses: Adds sweetness and a deep, rich flavor that balances the gin.

“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.