Abstract: An online system obtains a target food from an order for a user and alcohol preferences from an order purchase history. The online system generates a prompt for a machine learning model to request alcohol candidates based on the target food category. The prompt includes the alcohol preferences, and requests for each alcohol candidate, a pairing score indicating how well the target food category pairs with the alcohol candidate and a user preference score indicating how well the alcohol candidate aligns with the alcohol preferences. The online system receives as output the candidate alcohol items. Each alcohol candidate has the pairing score, the user preference score, and a textual reason for scores. The online system matches at least one alcohol item from a catalog with each alcohol candidate. A subset of alcohol items is presented to the user as a carousel.