Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Florida Orange Wine
about 10 gallons of wineIngredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Wipe the oranges with a wet cloth and peel off the yellow rind very thin.
Squeeze the oranges and strain the juice through a fine sieve.
Measure the juice; for each gallon, combine 3 pounds of sugar, the crushed egg white and shell, and ⅓ gallon of cold water in a pot.
Make the syrup
Heat the mixture, stirring every 2 minutes until the egg begins to harden.
Boil the syrup until it looks clear under the froth of egg on the surface.
Strain the syrup and pour it over the orange rind; let it stand overnight.
Ferment and age
The next day, add the orange juice and let it stand overnight again.
Strain it the second day and transfer to a tight cask.
Add a small cake of compressed yeast for about 10 gallons of wine.
Leave the bung out of the cask until fermentation ceases, indicated by the hissing noise.
Once fermentation stops, close the cask with the bung and let the wine stand for about 9 months before bottling.
After bottling, wait 3 months before using.
Optionally, add a glass of brandy to each gallon after fermentation.
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.
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Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Orange + winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,046 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,706 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,340 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and food for the yeast, which turns it into alcohol during fermentation.
- Egg white and shell
- Coagulates as it heats, collecting impurities and clarifying the syrup.
- Compressed yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Oranges
- Supply the juice and flavour, with rind infused into the syrup for aroma.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup until clear. The egg white must be heated until it coagulates and rises with impurities, so the syrup clears. Skimming off the foam removes these particles, which would otherwise cloud the wine and affect its flavour.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, wine, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Applefits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, wine, brandy. 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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