Skip to main content
Drink

Lemon Soda

A fermented lemon soda made with water, lemons, ginger, cream of tartar, nutmeg, egg whites, and yeast.

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

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Soda

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soda

  1. Boil water, lemons, ginger, cream of tartar, and nutmegs together.

  2. Once cool, add beaten egg whites and yeast.

  3. Let the mixture ferment for 12 hours.

Bottle and rest

  1. Strain and bottle the soda.

  2. For best flavor, let it stand for a day or two.

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 + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Provide the sharp citrus acidity that gives the soda its tang.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma and bite to the drink.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives a tart flavor and helps keep the brew stable.
Egg whites
Help clarify the liquid as they set, so sediment is caught and the soda runs clearer.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars to produce carbonation and a light, lively fizz.

The step that matters

Fermenting and bottling. Yeast needs the cooled liquid to ferment properly. Bottling before fermentation ends can leave too much pressure, so the bottles may burst.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cream, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cream, nutmeg, egg. 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

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipesGinger WineGinger Wine12 recipes