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Drink

Gin Cocktail

A chilled gin cocktail with gum syrup, bitters, gin, Curacao, shaved ice, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and gin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gin Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Make the drink

  1. Fill a small bar glass one-third full of shaved ice.

  2. Add gum syrup, bitters, gin, and Curacao.

  3. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

Garnish and serve

  1. Twist a small piece of lemon peel and place it in the glass.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Syrup + gintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Gin + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together306 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Holland gin
Provides the main spirit base and the juniper aroma that defines the drink.
Gum syrup
Adds sweetness and body, softening the bitterness of the gin and bitters.
Bitters
Adds aromatic depth and a dry, bitter backbone to balance the sweetness.
Curacao
Adds orange-citrus flavour and a touch of sweetness in small amounts.

The step that matters

Shake well and strain. Shaking chills the drink and dilutes it with meltwater from the shaved ice, which softens the alcohol's sharpness. Insufficient shaking leaves the drink warm, harsh and unbalanced.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, 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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