Name: Ginger Cordial
Ingredients: 1 gallon whisky; 8 lemons; 4 pounds sugar; ¼ pound whole ginger biscuit; 1 quart water; 4 pounds red currants (optional, for summer)

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Combine whisky, lemons, and ginger in a crock.
Let it stand for 3 days, stirring daily.
Strain the mixture and add the sugar dissolved in the quart of water. Stir until well mixed, then bottle the cordial.
It is ready for use immediately.

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.

Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Biscuit + red curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together30 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together309 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together697 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Whisky + gingertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Whisky: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the lemons and ginger, and preserves the cordial.
Lemons: Provide acidity and bright citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharp, spirited flavour.
Whole ginger biscuit: Contributes warm ginger flavour and aroma as it steeps in the spirit.

Swap the red currant

The recipe marks red currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whisky, lemon, sugar, ginger, biscuit):

Limefits better
Orangefits better
Cherryfits better
Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whisky, lemon, sugar, ginger, biscuit. 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.