Name: Syrup for Pineapple
Ingredients: 6 ounces loaf sugar; ¾ pint water; peel of 1 lemon; 1 clove ginger; 1 inch piece of cinnamon; ⅓ cup brandy or white rum

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 ↓

Syrup for Pineapple

Ingredients

Directions

Combine sugar and water in a pot with lemon peel, ginger, and cinnamon.
Boil until the mixture reduces to half its volume.
Strain the syrup and let it cool.
Once cooled, stir in the brandy or rum.
Chill the syrup in the refrigerator until cold.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Orangefits better
Quincefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, ginger, cinnamon, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.