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Drink

Hock Cup

A chilled drink made from equal parts Hock wine and Londonderry lithia water, sweetened with sugar, pineapple, cucumber rind, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mint work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 884 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hock Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cup

  1. Combine equal parts of Hock wine and Londonderry lithia water in a clear crystal pitcher.

  2. Add 3 lumps of sugar for each quart and stir until dissolved.

  3. Incorporate 1 or 2 slices of pineapple and a long paring of cucumber rind.

  4. Let the pitcher stand in a pail of ice for a few minutes.

  5. Do not add ice directly to the drink to preserve its flavor.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, sprinkle fresh mint leaves on top.

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. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pineapple + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Pineapple + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

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

  4. Wine + pineappletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Wine + minttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hock wine
Provides the wine base and light acidity that carries the drink's flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and mineral water.
Pineapple
Adds fruity aroma and a touch of sweetness and acidity.
Cucumber rind
Adds a fresh, green aroma to the drink.
Fresh mint leaves
Adds a cool, aromatic herbal scent at the surface.

The step that matters

Do not add ice directly to the drink. Ice melting into the drink dilutes it and weakens its flavor. Chilling the pitcher in a pail of ice cools the drink while keeping the flavor concentrated.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sugar, pineapple, mint):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, pineapple, mint. 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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