Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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
Prepare
Pare the lemons very thin and place half the peel in a tub.
Boil the sugar and water together, then pour it over the lemon peel.
Allow the mixture to cool, then add the lemon juice.
Ferment
If fermentation does not start in a few days, add a toast of bread covered with yeast.
Remove the peel and transfer the liquid into a cask.
Seal the cask when fermentation ceases.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar 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, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Lemons
- Supply the juice and peel that give the wine its acidity and citrus aroma.
- Yeast (in the method)
- Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide to drive fermentation.
The step that matters
Adding the yeast-covered toast. If the wine does not start fermenting within a few days, yeast is needed to start the process. Fermentation drives the conversion of sugar into alcohol, so a slow start leaves the sugar unused.
“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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