Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Apple Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Grind the apples in an apple mill.
Press out the juice through a fine cloth.
Ferment
Add 2.5 pounds of lump sugar to each gallon of juice.
Put the mixture into a cask and ferment it.
When fermentation starts, seal the cask.
If fermentation continues, lift the bung and add a few pieces of isinglass.
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.
-
Orange + appletop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,790 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
- Orange pippins and nutmeg pippins
- Provide the apple juice that supplies the fermentable base and flavour of the wine.
- Lump sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Apple juice
- Supplies the water, sugars and flavour that ferment into the wine.
The step that matters
Sealing the cask once fermentation starts. Active fermentation releases carbon dioxide, and sealing the cask traps it while keeping air out, which helps prevent spoilage by unwanted microbes and oxidation.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, apple):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Clovefits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, apple. 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.
You might also like
Apple Water81 recipes
Orange Syrup47 recipes
Orange Water Ice28 recipes
Vegetable Soup350 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.