Name: Lemon Wink
Ingredients: 8 large lemons; 2 pints brandy; 6 additional lemons; 2 quarts spring water; 3 pounds loaf sugar; 1 bottle wine

Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Wink

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the lemons

Thinly peel the 8 lemons and squeeze out the juice.
Add the juice to 2 pints of brandy and include the lemon rinds.
Cover the mixture in an earthenware vessel and let it sit for 3 days.

Make the syrup and blend

Squeeze the juice from 6 more lemons into 2 quarts of spring water and add 3 pounds of loaf sugar.
Boil the lemon juice mixture until cool, then combine it with the brandy mixture and 1 bottle of wine.
Mix well and strain through a linen bag into a cask.

Age and bottle

Seal the cask tightly and bottle after 3 months.
Cork and wire the bottles securely and store in sand for 8 weeks before 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.

Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,351 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 juice and peel oils that give the drink its bright, aromatic flavour.
Brandy: Acts as the spirit base, extracting lemon oils and adding strength and warmth.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity and rounds out the drink.
Wine: Adds body and additional flavour to the blended liquor.