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English White Wine

A homemade white wine made with Lisbon sugar, water, Malaga raisins, strong ale, brandy, sugar candy, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,768 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

English White Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Boil the sugar in water for 20 minutes, skimming off the scum.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a tub and let it cool nearly to room temperature.

  3. Once cool, add the chopped raisins and strong ale.

  4. Let it stand for 3 days, stirring well each day.

Cask and bottle

  1. Transfer to a cask and add brandy, sugar candy, and isinglass.

  2. Bottle the wine in 8 to 12 months.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Lisbon sugar
Provides the fermentable sugar that yeast converts into alcohol.
Malaga raisins
Add fruit sugar and flavour to the wine.
Strong ale
Supplies yeast to start fermentation of the sugar.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and strengthens the finished wine.
Isinglass
Clarifies the wine by helping suspended particles settle out.

The step that matters

Let the cooled must stand while stirring daily. The mixture must be cool enough that the yeast in the ale is not killed by heat. Daily stirring keeps the yeast in contact with the sugar and releases carbon dioxide, so fermentation proceeds evenly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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