Name: A Healthy Spruce Beer
Ingredients: 1 pint essence of spruce; 4 ounces bruised pimento; 4 ounces ginger; 3 gallons water; 1 gallon warm water; 1 pint yeast; 6 pints molasses

Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A Healthy Spruce Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

Boil the essence of spruce, pimento, ginger, and 3 gallons of water for 5 to 10 minutes.
Strain the mixture and add 1 gallon of warm water.

Ferment

Stir in 1 pint of yeast and 6 pints of molasses.
Allow the mixture to ferment for 24 hours.

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.

Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast: Drives fermentation, converting sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol that give the beer its fizz.
Molasses: Supplies the sugar the yeast ferments, and adds sweetness and deep flavour.
Essence of spruce: Provides the main resinous, aromatic flavour that defines the beer.

“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.