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Drink

Dandelion Wine

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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

Prepare the blossoms

  1. Scald the dandelion blossoms.

  2. Let the blossoms stand for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the blossoms.

Make the wine

  1. Add sugar, oranges, and lemons.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the mixture into a vessel.

  4. Let it cool to lukewarm.

  5. Add 1 cup of yeast.

  6. Let it work overnight.

  7. Strain the mixture.

  8. Let it ferment for 3 weeks.

Finish and bottle

  1. After fermentation, add 1 pint of sugar.

  2. Add 1 pint of alcohol.

  3. Bottle the wine for use.

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. Orange + lemontop 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Dandelion blossoms
Provide the main flavour and the base of the wine.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and gives the yeast the sugar it needs to ferment.
Yeast
Converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Oranges and lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour.
Alcohol
Stops fermentation and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Let it cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is damaged or killed by very hot liquid. Cooling the mixture to lukewarm before adding the yeast keeps the yeast alive so it can start fermenting the sugar.

“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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