Name: Ginger Beer
Ingredients: 5 lb sugar; 1 lb ginger, bruised; 1 bucket (about 5 quarts) boiled water; cold water; 1 bottle yeast; 2 packets cream of tartar; 2 bottles beer (optional)

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 ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine sugar and bruised ginger in a small cask.
Add boiled water and let it sit for 1 day.
After a day, fill the cask with cold water.

Ferment and bottle

Add yeast and cream of tartar.
After 2 days, the ginger beer can be bottled.
If yeast is unavailable, substitute with 2 bottles of beer.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ginger + beertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together699 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Sugar: Feeds the yeast and provides the sweetness and fermentable sugar for the drink.
Ginger: Supplies the spicy aroma and flavour that defines the drink.
Yeast: Ferments the sugar into carbonation and alcohol, making the drink fizzy.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity that helps keep the mixture stable during fermentation.