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Gin Fizz

A gin cocktail with lemon juice, sugar, cream, and soda water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Gin Fizz

Ingredients

Directions

Make the drink

  1. In a shaker, combine sugar, lemon juice, cream, and gin.

  2. Fill the shaker with fine ice and shake well.

  3. Strain the mixture into a glass.

Finish and serve

  1. Top with fizz water and serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + gintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Cream + gintop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon 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

Gin
Provides the base spirit and the main flavor of the drink.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and brightens the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Cream
Adds a little fat and softness, giving the drink a smoother body.

The step that matters

Shake well with fine ice. Vigorous shaking chills the drink and dilutes it slightly while mixing the ingredients evenly. Fine ice melts faster and chills quickly, so the drink gets cold and well blended. Shaking too briefly leaves it warm and unevenly mixed.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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