Name: Elder Flower Syrup
Ingredients: Elder flowers; Clear syrup; Thin syrup; Juice of 1-2 lemons; Spirit (optional)

Why it works: Syrup and spirit work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 141 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Elder Flower Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Pick the elder flowers well.
Infuse the flowers in clear syrup for three weeks to a month.
Strain the mixture and bottle it for use.

Serve

To make a frozen treat, lower the syrup with thin syrup and add lemon juice, then freeze.
For a cordial, mix the syrup with spirit like peppermint.

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.

Syrup + spirittop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together141 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + spirittop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together256 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Elder flowers: Provide the main floral aroma that flavours the syrup.
Clear syrup: Draws flavour out of the flowers and preserves the infused liquid through its sugar content.
Juice of 1-2 lemons: Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, floral flavour.