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Lemon Wine

A fermented lemon wine flavored with lemon rind and sweetened with sugar, clarified with isinglass, and finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Wine

Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓

Lemon Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the lemons, using only the rind of 25 of them.

  2. Put the lemon rinds into the cold water.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 8 to 9 days, squeezing the lemons well every day.

Ferment

  1. Strain the water off and transfer it to a cask with the sugar.

  2. Allow the mixture to ferment until it stops working.

  3. Add the isinglass.

  4. Seal the cask.

Age and bottle

  1. After about six months, add the brandy and 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.

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.

  1. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemons
Provide the juice and rind that supply the wine's flavour and acidity.
Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Brandy
Added at the end to raise the alcohol content and strengthen the wine.
Isinglass
A fining agent that helps clear the wine after fermentation.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for 8 to 9 days, squeezing the lemons well every day. Soaking the rinds in water draws out their aromatic oils and flavour compounds, and daily squeezing releases more juice. Stopping early leaves the wine weaker in flavour.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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