Name: Infant’s Syrup
Ingredients: 1 pound best box raisins; ½ ounce anise-seed; 2 sticks licorice; 3 quarts rain water

Why it works: Raisin and anise work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Infant’s Syrup

Ingredients

1 pound best box raisins
½ ounce anise-seed
2 sticks licorice
3 quarts rain water

Directions

Split the raisins.
Pound the anise-seed.
Cut the licorice fine.
Add the raisins, anise-seed, and licorice to the rain water.
Boil down the mixture to 2 quarts.
Feed the child 3 to 4 times a day, as much as they will willingly drink.

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.

Raisin + anisetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Anise + licoricetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Raisin + licoricetop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).