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To Make Cowslip Wine

A fermented beverage made with raisins, sugar, water, cream of tartar, and bruised cowslip flowers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Make Cowslip Wine

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

To Make Cowslip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare a simple wine as you would for gooseberry wine.

  2. Dissolve the raisins and sugar in the water.

  3. Add the cream of tartar.

  4. When fermentation nearly ceases, add the bruised cowslip flowers.

  5. Complete the wine-making process as usual.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,642 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide fermentable sugars and nutrients that feed the yeast during fermentation.
Sugar
Serves as the main fermentable sugar, producing alcohol as the yeast works.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, which supports a clean fermentation and a balanced flavour.
Cowslip flowers
Contribute the floral aroma and character that define this wine.

The step that matters

Adding the cowslip flowers when fermentation nearly ceases. Adding the flowers too early lets vigorous fermentation carry off their delicate aroma with the carbon dioxide, and it can also introduce excess plant material. Waiting until activity slows keeps the floral character more intact.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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