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Drink

Claret Cup

A chilled wine cocktail made with claret, sherry, brandy, noyeau, Maraschino, lemon rind, sugar, and seltzer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Put the claret, lemon rind, and 1 or 2 tablespoons of caster sugar into a large jug.

  2. Cover and let it stand in ice for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sherry, brandy, noyeau, Maraschino, and seltzer or soda water.

  2. Serve chilled.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Forms the wine base that carries the flavour of the whole drink.
Sherry
Adds a dry, nutty depth and extra body to the wine base.
Brandy
Adds strength and a warm, rounded spirit flavour.
Seltzer or soda water
Adds carbonation, lightness and a crisp finish.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the wine and softens its acidity and tannins.

The step that matters

Let the jug stand in ice for 1 hour. Chilling the wine with lemon rind lets the citrus oils infuse and the drink cool without dilution. Adding the carbonated water too early would lose its fizz, so it goes in only at the end.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, brandy, sugar. 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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