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Drink

Wine Cup

A chilled cocktail combining champagne, claret, mineral water, brandy, Curaçao, citrus slices, cucumber rind, mint, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Wine Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine champagne, claret, mineral water, brandy, and Curaçao in a large glass jug.

  2. Add the sliced orange, lemon, cucumber rind, and crushed ice.

  3. If desired, stir in castor sugar to taste.

  4. Garnish with small sprigs of mint floating on top.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Champagne + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together549 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Champagne
Adds sparkle and a light, dry bubbly body to the cup.
Claret
Provides the wine base and its tannins and fruit flavour to the cup.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic strength and a warm, rounded depth to the cup.
Curaçao
Contributes orange-flavoured sweetness and aroma that complements the citrus fruit.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, brandy, orange, lemon, mint, sugar):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, brandy, orange, lemon, mint, 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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