Name: Ginger Beer
Ingredients: 10 gallons water; 6 pounds white sugar; 6 ounces crushed ginger; 2 ounces cream of tartar; 1 ounce tartaric or citric acid; 1 yeast cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger liquor

Boil the crushed ginger in water for two hours.
Dissolve the sugar in the hot ginger water.

Start the culture

In a separate bowl, combine the yeast and acids with lukewarm water and let it stand overnight.

Bottle

The next day, bottle the 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

White sugar: Provides sweetness and the food the yeast ferments into carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Crushed ginger: Provides the main spicy aroma and flavor.
Yeast cake: Ferments the sugar, producing the carbonation that makes the drink fizzy.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity that gives the drink a tangy, sharp taste.
Tartaric or citric acid: Adds sourness and acidity that balances the sweetness.