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 Lemon-Wine to Drink Like Citron
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare the lemons very thin and place the peels in the brandy. Let them stand for 14 days.
Boil the water with 40 pounds of sugar for 30 minutes. Cool it in a tub.
Make the lemon juice into a syrup with 3 pounds of sugar.
Start the fermentation
After 14 days, add the barm to the cooled water. Let it work for 2 days.
Combine and age
Combine the brandy, peels, syrup, and the water mixture.
Stir well and close the cask. Let it stand for 3 months. Bottle it.
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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Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,235 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Brandy + syruptop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together561 recipes
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
- Peel oils give aroma and flavor, and the juice adds acidity.
- French brandy
- Extracts flavor from the peels and adds alcohol that keeps the wine stable.
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol.
- Barm
- Yeast that ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The step that matters
Add the barm to the cooled water. Yeast is killed or slowed by hot liquid, so the water must be cool before the barm goes in. Otherwise fermentation may stall or fail.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, syrup):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, 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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