Skip to main content
Drink

Whiskey Sour

A mixed drink of lemon juice, whiskey, sugar syrup, rye whiskey, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiskey Sour

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the lemon juice, whiskey, sugar syrup, and rye whiskey in a shaker.

  2. Add cracked ice and stir well.

  3. Strain the mixture into a small thin glass.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + ryetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Syrup + ryetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon juice
Provides the sour acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar syrup.
Whiskey
Forms the spirit base, supplying the alcohol and main body of the drink.
Sugar syrup
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Rye whiskey
Adds a spicier, drier character to the whiskey base.
Cracked ice
Chills the drink and dilutes it slightly as it melts during stirring.

The step that matters

Stir well with the ice. Stirring with ice chills the drink and melts a controlled amount of water into it, which softens the harshness of the alcohol and balances the acidity. Stirring too briefly leaves the drink warm and sharp.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, rye):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, rye. 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesOrgeat SyrupOrgeat Syrup13 recipes