Skip to main content
Drink

Sassafras Shrub

A fermented beverage made from sassafras root, molasses, lemon rind, spices, tartaric acid, and soda water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sassafras Shrub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shrub

  1. Boil 1 tablespoon of sassafras root in 2 gallons of water.

  2. Add 1 pint of New Orleans molasses, the rind of 4 lemons, ½ teaspoon cloves, and ½ stick of cinnamon.

  3. Cover with cheesecloth and let stand in a cool place for 5 days.

  4. Strain the mixture and add 1½ tablespoons of tartaric acid.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix ¼ teaspoon of carbonate of soda in ½ glass of water with chipped ice.

  2. Stir and pour in ½ glass of the shrub, then drink while effervescing.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the shrub.
Tartaric acid
Provides the sharp, sour acidity that balances the sweetness.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid to produce fizz when mixed in water.
Lemon rind
Contributes citrus aroma and oils to the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the carbonate of soda to the glass. Carbonate of soda and tartaric acid react to release carbon dioxide, which makes the drink effervesce. The soda must be mixed in just before drinking, because the fizz fades once the gas escapes.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, clove, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipes