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Claret Cup @LA Brunow

A chilled cocktail with claret, brandy, sherry, citrus, herbs, and sweeteners.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 @LA Brunow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a large vessel, mix 3 lbs. of coarse sea salt with 12 lbs. of ice.

  2. Add sprigs of balm, borage, and a few slices of cucumber.

  3. Pour 1 pint of sherry and 4 pints of brandy over the herbs.

Add the citrus and mixers

  1. Rub the peel of 1 lemon on a lump of sugar to create oleo-saccharum.

  2. Add the strained juice of 1 lemon and 3 oranges.

  3. Mix in ½ cup of Curacao, ½ cup of ratafia of raspberries, 2 bottles of German seltzer water, 3 bottles of soda, and 3 bottles of claret.

  4. Sweeten to taste, draw the herbs, and serve chilled.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Borage + lemontop 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. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sherry
Adds a dry, nutty body and depth to the wine base.
Brandy
Provides the main spirit strength and warming body to the punch.
Lemon peel
Its oils release aroma and a bright, fragrant citrus character when rubbed into sugar.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the punch.
Claret
Forms the red wine base, contributing color, tannin and fruitiness.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the citrus.

The step that matters

Sweeten to taste. Sugar, citrus and the diluting ice and mixers all change perceived sweetness and acidity. Adding sweetener at the end, after dilution, lets the cook correct the balance rather than overshooting early.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

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