Name: Bitters
Ingredients: 12 ounces gentian root (sliced); 10 ounces cinnamon bark; 10 ounces caraway seeds; 2 ounces juniper berries; 1 ounce cloves; 7 pints 90% alcohol; 1 pint Capillaire; water to make up to 3 gallons

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Bitters

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate the gentian root, cinnamon bark, caraway seeds, juniper berries, and cloves in alcohol for a week.
Strain the mixture, press out the solids, and filter it.
Add 1 pint of Capillaire and enough water to make a total of 3 gallons.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + carawaytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together188 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Caraway + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Gentian root: Provides the intense bitterness that defines the finished bitters.
Cinnamon bark: Adds warm, sweet aromatic notes that round out the bitterness.
Caraway seeds: Contributes an earthy, aromatic flavor to the infusion.
Juniper berries: Adds piney, resinous aroma characteristic of gin-style botanicals.
90% alcohol: Extracts the flavor compounds from the botanicals and preserves the final mixture.