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Drink

Citron Cream

A citrus liqueur made by infusing citrons in brandy, distilling, and sweetening with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sugar 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 ↓

Citron Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Zest the citrons and add to the brandy with 4 pints of water in a well‑corked jar.

  2. Let the mixture infuse for several days.

Distill

  1. Distill the mixture using a double boiler until you have 18 pints.

  2. Discard the first drops from the distillation, as they are not suitable for mixing.

Sweeten and filter

  1. Dissolve the sugar in 14 pints of water.

  2. Combine the sugar solution with the distilled spirit and filter through a bag.

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. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar 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

Citrons
Their zest supplies the main citrus aroma and flavour that infuse into the spirit.
Brandy
Serves as the alcohol base that extracts and carries the citrus flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong spirit and citrus notes.

The step that matters

Discard the first drops from the distillation. The first drops of distillate carry the most volatile and harsh compounds, such as fusel-type alcohols and congeners, so separating them keeps the final liqueur clean-tasting.

“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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