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Drink

Brown Caudle

A warm drink made from clear beer, thick gruel, spices, sugar, and gin or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gruel

  1. Strain thick grit gruel to match the quantity of clear beer.

  2. If the gruel is very thick, run the beer through it while stirring barley water.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the mixture over the fire with allspice until just about to boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let it sit on the hob for a few minutes.

  3. In a jug, combine the gruel with sugar, nutmeg, and gin or brandy.

  4. Stir well and serve hot with rusks, biscuits, or dry toast.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beer + allspicetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Beer + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Thick grit gruel
Forms the thick body of the soup, giving it substance and a soft, porridge-like texture.
Clear, strong beer
Provides the liquid base and a malty, bitter flavour that the other ingredients season.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the bitterness of the beer.
Gin or brandy
Adds alcoholic warmth and aroma to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Heating before the boil. Heating the beer mixture until it is just about to boil, then taking it off the heat, keeps the alcohol from boiling off and avoids curdling or scorching the thickened gruel, so the soup stays smooth and aromatic.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, sugar, nutmeg, gin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, sugar, nutmeg, gin. 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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