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Drink

Claret Cup, a LA Brunow

A chilled alcoholic beverage made with claret, curacao, sherry, brandy, raspberry ratafia, citrus, soda, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Borage and cucumber share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Claret Cup, a LA Brunow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cup

  1. Combine claret, curacao, sherry, brandy, and raspberry ratafia in a large pitcher.

  2. Add orange and lemon slices, seltzer water, and soda-water.

  3. Stir in sprigs of green balm and borage, and cucumber rind.

  4. Sweeten with powdered sugar until it begins to ferment.

Rest and serve

  1. Let it stand for one hour.

  2. Strain and chill well.

  3. Serve in small glasses.

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. Borage + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 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

Claret
Forms the wine base that gives the cup its body and main flavor.
Brandy
Adds strength and warming depth to the wine base.
Sherry
Contributes nutty, dry notes that round out the wine.
Curacao
Adds orange-peel sweetness and aroma to the blend.
Raspberry ratafia
Adds fruity sweetness and raspberry aroma.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cup and balances the acidity of the citrus and wine.

The step that matters

Sweeten with powdered sugar until it begins to ferment. The record says to sweeten until fermentation begins, which is unusual, so the cook should sweeten gradually and taste as they go. Too much sugar can make the cup cloying, and the stated fermentation point is not a fixed measure, so it should be watched rather than guessed.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, brandy, raspberry, orange, lemon, borage, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Lettucefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, brandy, raspberry, orange, lemon, borage, sugar. 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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