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Drink

Orange Wine

A fermented beverage made from Seville orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, egg whites, and brandy, aged in barrels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Combine 5 gallons of spring water, 15 pounds of loaf sugar, and 3 beaten egg whites in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum that rises.

  3. Once cooled, add the juice of 60 Seville oranges and 5 lemons.

Infuse the fruit

  1. Pare 10 oranges and 5 lemons thinly, thread them, and suspend them in the barrel for 2 months.

  2. After 2 months, remove the fruit, add 1 pound of loaf sugar, and seal the barrel.

Ferment and age

  1. For each gallon of water, add 3 pounds of lump sugar and boil for 30 minutes, skimming off the scum.

  2. When cool, add a crust of toasted bread dipped in thick yeast and ferment in a tub for 36 hours.

  3. Add the peel of 2 oranges and 1 lemon for every gallon, along with 1 gallon of cowslip-pips, and pour the liquor over.

  4. Stir the mixture daily for a week, then add 1 bottle of brandy for every 5 gallons.

  5. Seal the cask and let it stand for 6 weeks before bottling.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  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

Egg whites
Coagulate and carry impurities to the surface, so skimming clears the liquor.
Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Seville oranges
Supply juice for acidity and citrus aroma in the finished wine.
Brandy
Adds spirit strength and warmth to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled sugar liquor. Egg whites coagulate as the liquor heats, trapping scum and impurities that rise to the surface. Removing them as they form keeps the wine clear and reduces off flavours.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, brandy. 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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