Name: Soda Water
Ingredients: 2 quarts boiling water; 3 pounds sugar; 1 pint cold water; 3 ounces wintergreen; 4 egg whites; 3 ounces tartaric acid

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Soda Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

Pour boiling water over sugar.
Let the mixture cool.
Pour cold water over tartaric acid.

Combine and bottle

Add wintergreen.
Add tartaric acid.
Beat the egg whites.
Add the egg whites last.
Mix all ingredients together.
Bottle and cork.
Store in a cool place for use.

Serve

To serve, mix ½ teaspoon soda in ¼ glass ice water.
Add four tablespoons of the soda mixture.

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.

Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites: Whipped egg whites add foam and a light, frothy texture to the drink.
Tartaric acid: Provides the sharp, sour bite that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and body to the syrup base.
Wintergreen: Supplies the dominant minty, aromatic flavour.

“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.