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Drink

Orange Wine

A fermented beverage made from bitter orange peel and juice, sweetened with sugar, and optionally fortified with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice and peel

  1. Pare the oranges very thin.

  2. Squeeze the juice into a ten-gallon cask.

  3. Add 6 gallons of water and 28 pounds of sugar to the cask.

  4. Steep half the peel in 2 gallons of water for 12 hours.

  5. Pour this water into the cask.

  6. Steep the remaining peel in the rest of the water.

  7. Fill the cask.

  8. Stir daily until the sugar dissolves.

Ferment and age

  1. Seal the cask when fermentation ceases.

  2. Rack the wine after 2 months.

  3. Fine the wine.

  4. Bottle the wine after 3 more months.

  5. Add a bottle of brandy at the end of the first 2 months if desired.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Bitter orange + brandytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Bitter orange + sugartop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14 recipes

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Bitter oranges
Juice provides acidity and peel provides aroma and bitterness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and sweetness left in the wine.

The step that matters

Seal the cask when fermentation ceases. Yeast turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and bubbling slows as sugar runs out. Sealing once activity stops limits air contact, which helps prevent spoilage and oxidation. Sealing too early can trap unfinished fermentation.

Swap the bitter orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Bitter orangethe 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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