Name: Alterative Bitters^ Cheap and Good
Ingredients: 1 oz. yellow dock root; 1 cup grated horseradish; 1 quart hard cider

Why it works: Dock and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Alterative Bitters^ Cheap and Good

Ingredients

1 oz. yellow dock root
1 cup grated horseradish
1 quart hard cider

Directions

Combine yellow dock root and grated horseradish in a quart of cold hard cider.
Let it sit for one day.
Take a wine glass full before each meal.

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.

Dock + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + cidertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together338 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Dock + cidertop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).