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Drink

Lemonade Wine

A sweet, citrusy beverage made with lemons, sherry, sugar, eggs, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lemonade Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Rub 6 lumps of sugar on the rinds of 2 lemons.

  2. Pare the rind of 2 more lemons very thinly, avoiding the white part.

  3. Put the sugar and lemon rind into a jug.

Make the infusion

  1. Pour 1½ pints of boiling water over them and let it cool.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add ½ pint of sherry.

  4. Beat the eggs well and stir them in.

  5. Squeeze the juice of the 4 lemons and strain it into the jug.

Serve

  1. Stir the mixture and serve.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemons
Supply the zest and juice that give the drink its main citrus aroma and sharp acidity.
Sherry
Adds alcohol and a fortified wine flavour that rounds out the sharpness of the lemon.
Eggs
Beaten eggs are stirred in to add body and a slightly rich texture to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity of the lemon juice and rind.

The step that matters

Pare the rind very thinly, avoiding the white part. The white pith is bitter, so including it would make the drink taste harsh. Thin peel removes only the aromatic oils and flavour from the outer zest.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, egg, sugar. 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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