Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Orange Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Boil the water and sugar together for 20 minutes, skimming off any scum.
Peel 2 dozen oranges as thinly as possible and place the rinds in a tub.
Pour the hot water and sugar mixture over the orange rinds.
Ferment
Squeeze the juice from the remaining oranges and add it to the mixture.
When the mixture is nearly cold, stir in the yeast and let it ferment for 3 to 4 days.
Remove the orange peel and add it to a cask with the melted isinglass mixed in a little of the liquor.
Age and bottle
Seal the cask and let it sit for 4 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.
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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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
- Lump sugar
- Provides the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol.
- Seville oranges
- Supply the juice and peel that give the wine its orange flavour and aroma.
- New yeast
- Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
- Isinglass
- Fining agent that helps clear the wine by settling out suspended particles.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be nearly cold before it is stirred in. Adding yeast to hot liquid can stop fermentation before it starts.
“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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