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Syrups, Liqueurs, Etc

A sweet lemon liqueur made with sugar, water, lemon juice, sherry, milk, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and barley work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Syrups, Liqueurs, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liqueur

  1. Dissolve the loaf sugar in boiling water.

  2. Mix in lemon juice and sherry.

  3. Add cold milk. Stir well.

  4. Strain through a jelly bag until clear.

  5. Rasp the lemon rind with sugar.

  6. Pour the strained juice over the rasped rind.

  7. Press the mixture into a jar for later use.

Prepare the barley drink

  1. Wipe pearl barley clean.

  2. Place the barley in a quart jug with sugar, salt, and lemon peel.

  3. Fill the jug with boiling water.

  4. Stir gently for a few minutes.

  5. Cover the jug.

  6. Let it cool until ready to use.

Serve

  1. To serve, dissolve a tablespoonful of the mixture in a glass of water.

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. Lemon + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Milk + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + barleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Dissolves to sweeten the base and balance the sharp citrus and sherry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour.
Sherry
Adds body and aroma to the liqueur.
Cold milk
Softens the liquid, and its proteins are removed when the mixture is strained clear.
Pearl barley
Gives a light body and mild grain flavour to the barley drink.

The step that matters

Strain through a jelly bag until clear. Milk proteins curdle with the acid and must be filtered out; rushing this leaves the liqueur cloudy and gritty.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, milk, barley):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, milk, barley. 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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