Why it works: Brandy and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,351 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓
Lemon Brandy
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse the rinds
Peel the lemons thin, avoiding the white pith.
Put the rinds into a bottle with the brandy, and let them infuse for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, strain the rinds from the liquid.
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar with the water for a few minutes.
Skim the boiled syrup.
When the syrup is cold, add it to the brandy.
Use
Use a dessert spoonful of the mixture as a flavouring for boiled custards.
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. See the original page.
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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Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,351 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Brandy
- Carries the lemon oils and aroma and forms the base of the flavoured liquor.
- Lemons
- Their peel supplies the aromatic oils that flavour the brandy during infusion.
- Sugar (in the method)
- Adds sweetness to the syrup that is mixed into the brandy.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool completely before adding it to the brandy. Heat drives off alcohol and volatile aroma compounds, so adding warm syrup to the brandy can weaken the alcohol and dull the lemon flavour.
“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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