Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil 4 quarts of water with 4 pounds of sugar for 30 minutes to make a syrup.
Let the syrup cool, then add the strained juice of 10 lemons.
Ferment
Place a toast covered with yeast on top and let it stand for 1-2 days until fermentation begins.
Remove the lemon rind, transfer the liquid to a cask, and keep it filled until fermentation ceases.
Age and bottle
Bung the cask closely and let it sit for 3 months before bottling.
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.
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the food that yeast converts into alcohol during fermentation.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, starting the fermentation.
- Lemons
- Supply the juice that gives the wine its acidity and bright lemon flavour.
The step that matters
Keep the cask filled until fermentation ceases. Topping up the cask keeps air away from the liquid. Exposure to air lets spoilage microbes, such as those that make vinegar, grow on the surface.
“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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