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Orange Avine

A fermented beverage made from powdered sugar, egg whites, water, yeast, lemon and orange juice, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Avine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil 12 pounds of powdered sugar and the whites of 8 or 10 beaten eggs in 6 gallons of spring water for 45 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add 6 tablespoons of yeast.

Prepare the citrus

  1. In a separate container, combine the juice of 12 lemons and 2 pounds of white sugar, and let it sit overnight.

  2. Skim off the top of the lemon mixture in the morning and add it to the water.

Ferment and finish

  1. Add the juice and rinds of 50 oranges, avoiding the white parts of the rinds.

  2. Allow the mixture to ferment for 2 days and 2 nights.

  3. Finally, add 2 quarts of Rhenish or white wine and transfer it to your vessel.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Orange + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together730 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the water to supply the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Egg whites
Boiled into the syrup, they coagulate and help clarify the liquid as they rise and set.
Yeast
Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports a healthy yeast fermentation.
Orange juice
Contributes fruit flavor, aroma and additional fermentable sugars.

The step that matters

Avoid the white parts of the orange rinds. The white pith is bitter and can carry harsh, astringent flavors into the wine, so only the colored zest should be used.

“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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