Why it works: Orange and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,068 recipes. Both carry pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Orange or Lemon Wine Without Boiling
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice and rinds
Shave the rinds of a dozen oranges, adjusting for desired bitterness.
Pour boiling water over the rinds and let it stand for 12 hours.
Strain the mixture into an 18-gallon cask.
Add the sugar to the cask.
Remove the peel and white pith from the oranges and squeeze the juice through a fine sieve.
Add the juice to the cask with the sugar.
Soak the pulp and ferment
Wash the sieve and pulp with cold water, letting the pulp soak for 24 hours.
Strain the soaked pulp and add the liquid to the cask, stirring continuously.
Repeat soaking and straining the pulp until the cask is full, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Leave the mixture to ferment, stirring occasionally.
When fermentation subsides, add honey and brandy, then cover with brown paper.
Age and bottle
Let the wine remain in the cask for one year before bottling.
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.
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Orange + honeytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,068 recipes
Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,706 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Honey + brandytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together169 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
- Sugar
- Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
- Seville oranges
- Supply the juice for flavour and acidity, and the rinds add aromatic bitterness.
- Brandy
- Raises the alcohol content and helps keep the finished wine stable.
- Honey
- Adds extra sweetness and a rounded flavour to the finished wine.
The step that matters
Dissolving the sugar while adding the pulp liquid. Sugar must be fully stirred in so yeast can access it evenly during fermentation. Undissolved sugar settles at the bottom, leaving uneven sweetness and fermentation.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, honey, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, honey, 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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