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Drink

Caudle for the Poor When Sick or Lying-in

A warm drink made with water, oatmeal, allspice, sugar, beer, and gin, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Caudle for the Poor When Sick or Lying-in

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Put 3 quarts of water in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix oatmeal with cold water to form a smooth paste.

  3. Once the water is boiling, pour in the oatmeal mixture and add the allspice.

  4. Boil until it reaches a medium thickness.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in sugar, table beer, and gin.

  2. Boil all together for a few minutes.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + beertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together940 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Allspice + beertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beer + gintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, medium-bodied drink.
Table beer
Adds fermented tang and a light, yeasty depth of flavor.
Gin
Adds alcohol and botanical aroma to the warm drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sour fermented beer.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until medium thickness. Oatmeal starch thickens as it heats and gelatinizes; stopping too early leaves the drink thin, while over-boiling can make it gluey and reduce the liquid. Adding the gin and beer after thickening keeps the alcohol and fermented flavors from being driven off too much.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, beer, gin):

  1. Gingerfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, beer, gin. 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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