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Drink

Orange Wine

A fermented beverage made from spring water, sugar, egg whites, lemon juice, orange juice and rinds, wine, raisins, and Seville oranges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Orange Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil 6 gallons of spring water for 45 minutes with 12 pounds of fine sugar and the beaten egg whites.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add 6 tablespoons of yeast.

  3. In a tankard, combine the juice of 12 lemons with 2 pounds of white sugar and let it sit overnight.

  4. Skim off the top and add it to the cooled water.

  5. Add the juice and rinds of 50 oranges, avoiding the white parts, and let it ferment for 48 hours.

  6. Stir in 2 quarts of Rhenish or white wine and transfer to a vessel.

Make the raisin version

  1. For a raisin version, chop 30 pounds of raisins and prepare 10 Seville oranges as for preserving.

  2. Boil 8 gallons of soft water until reduced by a third, then pour it hot over the raisins and orange peel.

  3. Cover and let it cool, stirring once or twice a day for 5 days.

  4. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing out as much liquid as possible.

  5. Add the rinds of the remaining 10 oranges and make a syrup with the juice of 20 oranges and 1 pound of white sugar.

Combine and clear

  1. Combine everything, seal the vessel, and let it stand for 2 months to clear before bottling.

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. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

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

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

  5. Orange + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together730 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

Fine sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and gives sweetness.
Egg whites
Clarify the liquid as they set during boiling, collecting impurities for skimming.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a clean fermentation.
Raisins
Supply sugar, body and fruity flavour to the wine.
Seville oranges
Contribute aromatic oil and bitter-sharp citrus flavour from their peel and juice.
Yeast (in the method)
Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Skimming the egg-white crust. Egg whites coagulate as the water boils and trap impurities on the surface. Removing them cleanly, with the liquid cooled, keeps the wine clear and prevents off-flavours from entering the fermentation.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, orange, white wine. 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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