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Sweet Champagne Cider

A sweet fermented cider flavored with sulphite of lime and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sweet Champagne Cider

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Let the cider ferment for 2 to 3 weeks until lively.

  2. Add 1 to 2 pounds of sugar per gallon, depending on the tartness.

  3. Allow it to work until it reaches your desired taste.

  4. Mix ¼ ounce of sulphite of lime into 1 quart of cider and return it to the rest.

  5. After 3 days, the cider will become clear and can be bottled.

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. Lime + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cider + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Mustard + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Lime + raisintop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and sets the final sweetness and fizz of the cider.
Cider
Provides the fermentable sugars and liquid base that turns into the drink.
Sulphite of lime
Helps the cider clear and stabilises it against unwanted fermentation.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, sugar, lime, mustard):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, sugar, lime, mustard. 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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