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Orange or Lemon Wine, Boiled

A fermented wine made from boiled oranges or lemons, sugar, eggs, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange or Lemon Wine, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water, sugar, and eggs together for 1 hour until clear.

  2. Add hops and fruit rinds; boil for an additional hour.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove peel and pith from the fruit, then squeeze out the juice.

  2. Pour 1-2 gallons of hot liquid over the pulp, stir, and cool.

  3. Strain the mixture and add the juice.

Ferment and age

  1. Ferment with yeast and refine with isinglass dissolved in 1 quart of brandy.

  2. Age the wine for 1 year in wood and 1 year in bottles.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + hopstop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Loaf sugar
Provides the sweetness and the alcohol that yeast later produces during fermentation.
Eggs
Whites and shells are boiled in the liquid, where they bind impurities and clarify it.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness and help preserve the wine.
Oranges or lemons
Rinds supply aroma and oils, while the juice adds acidity and fruit flavour.
Isinglass (in the method)
Fining agent that settles suspended particles so the wine becomes clear.

The step that matters

Cooling before fermenting. Hot liquid can kill or weaken yeast, so the mixture should be cooled before yeast is added to ensure a healthy fermentation.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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