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Drink

Welsh Nectar

A fermented drink made from water, raisins, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon peel, boiled, strained, and aged.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Welsh Nectar

Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Welsh Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil 2 gallons of water and allow it to cool.

  2. Add 1 pound of raisins, 2 pounds of loaf sugar, the juice of 3 lemons, and the thinly cut peel of the lemons.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir the mixture daily for 4 days.

  2. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag and bottle it.

  3. Ensure the corks are tied down.

  4. Let it sit for 10 days to 2 weeks before using.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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

Raisins
Add sweetness and body, and their sugars help feed the fermentation.
Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol during fermentation.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma from the juice and the thinly cut peel.

The step that matters

Ensure the corks are tied down. Fermentation gives off gas, so bottles that are not securely corked can push out their corks or leak. Securing the corks keeps the drink contained while it matures.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, 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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