Skip to main content
Drink

Dandelion Wine

A fermented beverage made from dandelion blossoms, sugar, citrus, yeast, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Dandelion Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Pour boiling water over dandelion blossoms and let it steep for 2 days.

  2. Strain the liquid.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add sugar, lemon, orange, yeast, and raisins.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a jar.

  3. Let it sit for 2 to 3 weeks.

  4. Strain through a flannel cloth.

  5. Bottle the wine.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Dandelion + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dandelion + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Feeds the yeast and becomes the alcohol, while leaving some sweetness in the finished wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Raisins
Add natural sugars and nutrients that help the yeast ferment vigorously.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports a clean fermentation.

The step that matters

Let it sit for 2 to 3 weeks. Fermentation needs time for yeast to convert sugar into alcohol. Bottling too early can leave residual sugar that keeps working, which may build pressure in sealed bottles.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dandelion, sugar, lemon, orange):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dandelion, sugar, lemon, orange. 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.

You might also like

Raisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesOrange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipes