Name: Orange Wine
Ingredients: 12 oranges; 6 pounds loaf sugar; whites of 2 eggs; 3 gallons clear water; 3-4 tablespoons good yeast; 1 quart rectified spirits

Why it works: Orange and spirit work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 171 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

Pare the oranges very thin and strain the juice, removing seeds.

Make the wine

In a pot, combine sugar, beaten egg whites, and water.
Boil gently for 1–2 hours, skimming off scum.
Add the orange juice and rind to the pot.
Stir in the yeast.
Let the mixture stand for 3–4 days.
Draw off the liquid.
Add the rectified spirits.
Bottle the liquid, securing corks with wire or twine.

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.

Orange + spirittop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together171 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Orange and sugar 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

Yeast: Drives fermentation, converting the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Loaf sugar: Provides the fermentable sugar that the yeast turns into alcohol.
Egg whites: Bind to impurities in the boiling liquid so they can be skimmed off, clarifying the wine.
Oranges: Supply the juice and rind that give the wine its citrus flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1–2 hours, skimming off scum. Boiling too hard or skipping the skimming leaves coagulated egg white and impurities in the liquid, which cloud the wine and can taint its flavour. Gentle heat keeps the sugar syrup clear while the scum rises for removal.