Name: Cowslip Wine
Ingredients: 1 gallon water; 3 pounds white sugar; yeast; 1 gallon cowslip flowers; rind and peel of 2 lemons or Seville oranges

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cowslip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

In a large container, combine 1 gallon of water with 3 pounds of white sugar.
Add yeast and let it ferment for 1.5 days.
Stir in 1 gallon of cowslip flowers and the rind and peel of 2 lemons or Seville oranges.
On the third day, strain the mixture and continue fermentation.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

White sugar: Feeds the yeast and becomes alcohol during fermentation, giving the wine its body and strength.
Yeast: Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Cowslip flowers: Supply the floral aroma and flavour that define the wine.
Lemon or seville orange rind and peel: Adds citrus oils and acidity that brighten the 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.