Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 wine
Boil water and sugar for 30 minutes.
When cool, add yeast for every 10 gallons.
Add the peels and juice of 8 thinly pared lemons.
Strain the juice through a jelly bag.
Place the rinds in a net with a stone to prevent them from rising.
Age and bottle
Add 1 pint of brandy for every 10 gallons.
Seal the barrel.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,351 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the wine's sweetness.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Lemons
- Provide acidity, fresh flavour and aroma from the juice and peel.
- Brandy
- Raises the alcohol content, adding strength and helping preserve the wine.
The step that matters
When cool, add yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the sugar water must cool before the yeast goes in, or fermentation may fail.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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