Name: May Drink
Ingredients: 1 bottle of hock wine; 3 ounces of powdered sugar; 1 lemon; a few black currant leaves; a few sprigs of fresh woodruff; 1 pint of water; ice

Why it works: Lemon and black currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

May Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

Combine the black currant leaves, woodruff, lemon rind, and powdered sugar in the water.
Steep until well-flavored.

Finish and serve

Pour in the hock wine and stir.
Strain into a glass jug, discarding the flavorings, and add a few sprigs of fresh woodruff.
Serve chilled over ice.

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.

Lemon + black curranttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together53 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wine + black curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + black curranttop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Hock wine: Forms the base of the drink, providing most of its liquid and wine flavor.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the drink and helps draw flavor out of the herbs into the water.
Fresh woodruff: Adds the characteristic aromatic, hay-like flavor of the drink.
Black currant leaves: Contribute a subtle, fresh aroma and flavor to the infusion.