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Drink

Ale Flip

A frothy ale-based drink made with eggs, sugar, spices, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and rum work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 646 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Ale Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Warm the ale in a pot until near boiling.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar and grated nutmeg or ginger in a separate bowl.

  3. Pour the warm ale into a jug.

  4. Combine the rum with the egg mixture in another container.

Combine

  1. Pour the ale into the egg mixture and back again until smooth like cream.

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. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Provide structure and body, thickening the drink into a smooth, creamy texture when heated.
Ale
Serves as the liquid base, carrying the warmth and flavour of the drink.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the ale and spices.
Rum or brandy
Adds alcohol and aroma, rounding out the warm, spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the ale into the egg mixture and back again. Pouring the warm ale back and forth gently combines the eggs with the hot liquid. Pouring too fast or with too little mixing can scramble the eggs, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum. 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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