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Drink

Orange Bitters

A bitter drink made from gentian tincture, orange tincture, orange oil, lemon oil, and orange wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Bitters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the Tincture of Gentian and Tincture of Orange together.

  2. Add the Soluble Oil of Orange and Soluble Oil of Lemon.

  3. Finally, stir in the Orange Wine until well combined.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tincture of gentian
Provides a bitter base that gives the bitters their characteristic backbone.
Tincture of orange
Adds orange aroma and a mild citrus flavour to the blend.
Soluble oil of orange
Concentrates orange aroma and flavour oils that dissolve evenly into the mixture.
Soluble oil of lemon
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the orange notes.
Orange wine
Serves as the alcoholic base that carries and preserves the flavourings.

“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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