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Methelin, or Honey Wine

Honey wine made by boiling honey with water, adding egg, spices, yeast, fermenting, and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Methelin, or Honey Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. In a pot, combine honey and spring water.

  2. Add the whole egg and boil until the egg floats.

  3. Strain the mixture into a cask.

Ferment

  1. Tie the ginger, cloves, mace, and cinnamon in a muslin bag and add to the cask.

  2. Add yeast to accelerate fermentation.

  3. When fermentation is sufficient, seal the cask.

Bottle

  1. After six weeks, draw off the liquid into bottles.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and most of the body and sweetness.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Whole egg
Its shell and white help clarify the liquid as it is boiled, collecting impurities on the surface.
White jamaica ginger
Adds a warm, pungent aroma and spiciness to the wine.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and flavour to the wine.

The step that matters

Seal the cask when fermentation is sufficient. Sealing too early can trap stalled fermentation and leave the wine sweet or unstable, while sealing too late exposes it to air, which can sour it. Timing the seal to the end of active fermentation keeps the wine balanced and protected from spoilage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, egg, ginger, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, egg, ginger, clove, cinnamon. 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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