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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from sugar, water, ginger, raisins, lemons, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Boil sugar in water for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Mix bruised ginger into a portion of the liquid.

Ferment

  1. When nearly cold, place chopped raisins and sliced lemons in a wine gallon cask.

  2. Pour the liquor over the raisins and lemons, then add yeast.

  3. Leave the cask open for 3 weeks, topping up with reserved liquor as needed.

  4. Bottle the wine after 6 to 9 months.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
Provides the sweetness and the food the yeast converts into alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Raisins
Add fruit sugars, body and nutrients that feed the fermentation.
Ginger
Contributes the spicy aroma and flavour characteristic of the wine.

The step that matters

Leave the cask open and top up with reserved liquor. Keeping the cask open lets fermentation vent gas, while topping up with reserved liquor replaces what evaporates and foams out. Keeping the level full limits exposure to air, which can spoil the wine by encouraging unwanted microbes and oxidation.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon. 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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