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Elderberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from elderberries, water, sugar, cloves, ginger, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Elderberry Wine

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Elderberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the berries from the stock and place them in a tub.

  2. Pour boiling water over the berries and press them down.

  3. Cover closely and let sit overnight.

  4. Strain and press out the juice.

Make the must

  1. Add 3 pounds of sugar, cloves, and ginger for every gallon of juice.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes, skimming well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a cask.

Ferment

  1. Add the yeast through the bung hole. Mix the yeast into the wine.

  2. Close the bung hole after fermentation is complete.

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.

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.

  1. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 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

Elderberries
Provide the main flavor, color, and tannins that give the wine its body.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness to balance the spices.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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