Name: Pine-Apple Rum
Ingredients: 50 gallons rum; 25 pineapples, sliced; 8 pounds white sugar

Why it works: Rum and pineapple work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 451 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pine-Apple Rum

Ingredients

50 gallons rum
25 pineapples, sliced
8 pounds white sugar

Directions

Combine the sliced pineapples and white sugar with the rum.
Let the mixture stand for two weeks before drawing off.

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.

Rum + pineappletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rum: Acts as the base spirit, extracting flavor and aroma from the pineapple.
Pineapples: Supply the fruit flavor and aroma as they steep in the spirit.
White sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the rum and fruit acidity.