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Drink

Lemon Wine

A fermented beverage made from lemons, brandy, sugar, water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Wine

Why it works: Brandy and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,340 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the peels

  1. Pare the lemons and place the peels in a gallon of brandy.

  2. Let them stand for 14 days.

Make the syrup and water

  1. Juice the lemons and make a syrup with 2 pounds of lump sugar.

  2. Boil 10 gallons of water with 40 pounds of lump sugar for 30 minutes.

  3. Cool the mixture.

  4. Beat the whites of 6 eggs to a froth.

  5. Mix the froth with the cold water.

Combine and age

  1. Add the brandy, peels, and syrup.

  2. Transfer to a cask, seal it, and let it stand for 6 months.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Lemons
Peels supply aromatic oils and juice supplies acidity and brightness.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the peels and preserves the liquor.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Whites of eggs
Egg white froth is stirred into the water to help clarify the liquor as it settles.

The step that matters

Letting the peels stand in brandy. Peels must be fully submerged and given the full 14 days so their oils and flavour compounds dissolve into the alcohol. Cutting this short leaves the lemon flavour weak and thin.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, egg. 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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