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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made with ginger, raisins, lemon peels, yeast, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 wine

  1. Boil 5 gallons of water with 7 pounds of powdered sugar for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  2. Cool the mixture and add 6 pounds of sun raisins.

  3. Boil 5 ounces of ginger in 2 quarts of water until reduced to 1 quart, adding the peels of 2 large lemons.

  4. Cool the ginger mixture and add it to the liquor along with 2 ounces of isinglass.

  5. Toast a piece of bread.

  6. Spread the toasted bread thickly with good yeast, then add it to the tub.

  7. Let the mixture stand overnight.

Cask and age

  1. Remove the bread and transfer the mixture to a cask with 1 pint of brandy.

  2. Seal the cask and let it stand for 6 weeks before bottling.

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. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sun raisins
Provide sugar and fruit flavour that ferment into the wine's body.
Powdered sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, giving the wine its strength and sweetness.
Good yeast
Converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Isinglass
Fines the wine by clumping suspended particles so they settle, clearing it.
Ginger
Adds its sharp, warm aroma and spicy flavour to the wine.

The step that matters

Spreading the toasted bread with yeast. Yeast needs a moist, sugary environment to become active; spreading it thickly on toast and floating it on the mixture lets it work gradually as the wine ferments. Too much yeast or too little contact can stall or uneven the fermentation.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, ginger, bread, brandy. 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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