Skip to main content
Drink

Milk Lemonade

A chilled beverage made with lime juice, peel, syrup, madeira or sherry, boiling water, and fresh milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Milk Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine lime juice, lime peel, syrup, madeira or sherry, and boiling water in a covered vessel.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 12 hours.

Add milk and strain

  1. Boil the fresh milk and pour it over the mixture.

  2. Strain through a jelly bag until clear.

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. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Lime + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Syrup + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Syrup + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lime + syruptop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lime juice
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Lime peel
Adds aromatic oils that flavour the drink as it stands.
Syrup
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lime.
Madeira or sherry
Adds aroma and a mellow, fortified depth of flavour.
Fresh milk
Proteins curdle in the acid and are strained out, leaving a clear, mellow drink.

The step that matters

Pouring in the boiled milk. The milk must be added to the acidic mixture so its proteins curdle and separate. Straining then removes these solids, which is what makes the drink clear rather than cloudy.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sherry, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sherry, milk. 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

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesOrgeat SyrupOrgeat Syrup13 recipesSimple SyrupSimple Syrup13 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes