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Elder Wine

A fermented elderberry beverage made with water, sugar, spices, and toast for fermentation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Elder Wine

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine elderberries and water in a pot and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve to extract the juice.

Make the must

  1. Add ¾ pound of sugar to each quart of juice and boil for 15 minutes with spices.

  2. Pour the mixture into a tub and let it cool to a suitable temperature.

Ferment and seal

  1. Transfer the liquid into a barrel with toast to start fermentation.

  2. Wait until the mixture stops hissing before sealing the barrel.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and the juice that becomes the wine.
Lisbon sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
Toast
Starts fermentation as the yeast source carried into the barrel.

The step that matters

Waiting for the hissing to stop before sealing the barrel. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide, which builds pressure. Sealing too early can trap gas and risk the barrel bursting, while sealing after fermentation has finished protects the wine from air.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, ginger. 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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