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Drink

Cider Cup

A chilled drink made with cider, soda water, lemonade, cucumber, mint, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and cucumber work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 884 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cider Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cucumber without peeling it.

  2. In a jug, combine the cucumber slices, sugar, cider, and mint.

Chill and serve

  1. Let the mixture stand on ice for 2 hours.

  2. Add the lemonade and soda water.

  3. If desired, add ice.

  4. Remove the mint before serving.

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. Mint + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + minttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together389 recipes

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

  5. Cider + cucumbertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together572 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cider
Forms the liquid base and provides the main apple flavor.
Cucumber
Adds cool, fresh aroma and a light vegetal note as it steeps.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity of the cider and lemonade.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, giving the cup a light, lively fizz.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, sugar, cinnamon, cucumber):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, sugar, cinnamon, cucumber. 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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