Name: Brown Caudle
Ingredients: gruel (as for white caudle); ginger; mace; cloves; ½ cup gin; ½ cup good ale; toasted bread

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gruel as for white caudle, boiling more spices in it.
Add a good amount of ginger, mace, and a few cloves.
Boil for 2-3 hours until thick and flavorful.
Strain the mixture and return it to the fire with ½ cup of good ale.
Bring to a boil, then pour into a clean earthen pot.
Serve hot with strips of toasted bread around the cups.

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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Clove + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,129 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ginger + gintop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together54 recipes

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