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Drink

A Cool Cup

A chilled beverage made from lemon juice, sugar, cider, sherry, nutmeg, and optional herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and borage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

A Cool Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Weigh the sugar and rub it on the rind of a large lemon to extract the essence.

  2. Put the sugar into a deep jug and add the strained juice of 1½ lemons.

  3. Once the sugar is dissolved, pour in the bottle of cider and ⅓ cup of Sherry.

  4. Add nearly half a small nutmeg, lightly grated.

  5. Serve with or without sprigs of fresh balm or borage.

  6. For a refreshing summer beverage, cover and chill on ice for a short time.

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. Lemon + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Nutmeg + boragetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together76 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cider + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  5. Sherry + boragetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the drink and, rubbed on the lemon rind, draws out aromatic lemon oils.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the drink its bright flavour.
Cider
Forms the main liquid base and adds its own fruity, apple flavour.
Sherry
Adds depth and a dry, nutty wine character to the body of the drink.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice note that rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the sugar on the lemon rind. Sugar abrasively lifts oils from the peel into the crystals, so rubbing too little or using an unwashed lemon leaves the drink flat. The oils carry most of the citrus aroma, so the step shapes the drink's fragrance.

Swap the borage

The recipe marks borage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, cider, sherry, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Boragethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, cider, sherry, nutmeg. 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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