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Tiger Ginger Ale Extract

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tiger Ginger Ale Extract

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Moisten the ginger and capsicum powders with 3 pints of alcohol and let sit for 4 hours.

  2. Pack the mixture into a cylindrical percolator and percolate with alcohol until you have 6 pints of extract.

  3. Set this aside as Percolate No. 1.

  4. Percolate again with 1½ pints of alcohol mixed with 1½ pints of water and label this Percolate No. 2.

  5. Add 5 fluid ounces of oleo-resin ginger to Percolate No. 1.

  6. Mix the oils (1½ fluid ounces of oil of lemon, 1 fluid ounce of oil of cinnamon, and ½ fluid ounce of oil of geranium) with 8 ounces of magnesium carbonate.

  7. Gradually add this oil mixture to Percolate No. 2 and set aside.

  8. In a large bottle, combine Percolate No. 1 with pounds of finely powdered pumice stone, shaking every half hour for 6 hours.

  9. Finally, add the mixture from Percolate No. 2 and 10 pints of water, adding in ½ pint increments and shaking vigorously after each addition.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Capsicum + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Ginger + capsicumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the capsicum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, lemon, cinnamon, geranium):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Capsicumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, lemon, cinnamon, geranium. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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