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Drink

Mulled Wine

A warm beverage made by boiling wine and water, then adding beaten eggs, allspice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the wine and water together in a pot.

  2. Heat the mixture over the fire until it boils.

  3. Beat the eggs well in a separate bowl.

Make the mull

  1. Once the wine mixture boils, stir in the beaten eggs rapidly.

  2. Add a few grains of allspice and sweeten to your taste.

Serve

  1. Serve over toast or with toast on the side.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Wine + allspicetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together749 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

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

  4. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  5. Egg + allspicetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine
Forms the main liquid and gives the drink its base flavor and acidity.
Eggs
Thicken the hot liquid and add body as they set when stirred in.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the wine's acidity.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten eggs. Eggs set when they meet heat. Stirring rapidly while pouring them into the boiling liquid spreads them out so they thicken smoothly instead of clumping into scrambled bits.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, egg, sugar. 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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