Name: Claret Cup
Ingredients: currants or strawberries or raspberries; slices of melon or pineapple; lemons; claret or champagne; soda water or bottled lemonade

Why it works: Melon and champagne work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Substitute currants for strawberries or raspberries, and slices of melon for pineapple.
Use half the quantity of lemons compared to oranges.
Mix claret with soda water or bottled lemonade if desired.
Serve chilled.

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.

Melon + champagnetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Currant + champagnetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Melon + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together362 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

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