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Balm Wine

A fermented beverage made from sugar, water, balm, yeast, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Balm Wine

Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Balm Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil sugar in water for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  2. Add balm and strain the mixture.

  3. Cool the mixture and add yeast.

Ferment and age

  1. Let it stand for 2 days.

  2. Add the rind and peels of 2 lemons.

  3. Transfer to a barrel and let it stand for 6 to 8 months.

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

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

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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the food the yeast converts into alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine.
Balm
Adds the herbal aroma and flavour that define this wine.
Lemon rind and peels
Add aromatic oils and a bright citrus note to the wine.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid. The boiled syrup must cool fully before the yeast goes in, or fermentation may never start.

“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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