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Drink

Lemon Beek

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Beek

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

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

  2. Allow the mixture to cool slightly.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and yeast to the mixture.

  4. Let it ferment for 12 hours.

Bottle and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and bottle it.

  2. Let it stand for a day or two before serving.

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 main citrus flavour and some acidity.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma and bite to the drink.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that gives the drink a tangy, sharp edge.
Egg whites
Help clarify the liquid as they set and are strained out.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and alcohol.

The step that matters

Let it ferment for 12 hours. Yeast needs time at a suitable temperature to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Adding it to liquid that is still hot can kill the yeast, so the mixture must cool slightly first.

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.

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