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To Make Orange Wine a Second Way

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, orange peels, juice, yeast, mountain wine, and citron syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Make Orange Wine a Second Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Boil the water and sugar for 1 hour, skimming constantly.

  2. Thinly pare the peels of the oranges and place them in a tub.

  3. Pour the boiled liquid over the orange peels when it is almost cold.

Ferment

  1. Add the yeast and orange juice, then let it work for 2-3 days, stirring twice daily.

  2. Transfer to a barrel with mountain wine and syrup of citron, stirring well.

  3. Leave the barrel open until fermentation is complete, then seal it.

Age and bottle

  1. Let it stand for 6 weeks before bottling.

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. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  4. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Wine + syruptop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Lump sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides the sweetness and alcohol for the wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Orange peels
Contribute aroma and bitterness from their oils and pith.
Orange juice
Adds fruit flavour, acidity and additional sugar for fermentation.
Mountain wine
Adds alcohol and body to the blend.

The step that matters

Leave the barrel open until fermentation is complete. Sealing the barrel too early traps carbon dioxide and can stop the yeast or cause pressure build-up. Fermentation must finish first, so the wine does not continue working inside the bottle later.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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