Name: Alterative, Tonic, and Cathartic Bitters
Ingredients: 1 quart best rye whisky; 1 quart water; 2 oz best unground Peruvian bark; 2 oz Colombo root; 2 oz prickly-ash berries; 1 oz prickly-ash bark; 1 oz black cherry bark; 1 oz poplar bark

Why it works: Rye and cherry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Alterative, Tonic, and Cathartic Bitters

Ingredients

Directions

Pulverize all dry ingredients before combining.
Mix the pulverized ingredients with the rye whisky and water.
Shake the mixture every day for a week.
After a week, it is ready for use.
Take one or two tablespoons at morning and evening meals.

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.

Rye + cherrytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Rye + whiskytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together129 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Whisky + cherrytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together74 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).