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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, citrus rinds, sugar, yeast, raisins, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil the water, sugar, bruised ginger, and the rinds of the lemons and oranges for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool to warm, then transfer it to a cask.

Ferment

  1. Add the lemon and orange juice, yeast, and raisins to the cask.

  2. Stir the mixture daily for 6 to 7 days using a stick through the bung-hole.

  3. Add the isinglass and brandy to the cask.

  4. Close the barrel and let it sit for 6 weeks before bottling.

Age

  1. Allow the bottled ginger wine to age for 6 months before drinking.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides the sweetness that remains in the finished wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Raisins
Add natural sugars and nutrients that support fermentation and body in the wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that collects suspended particles so the wine clears.
Bruised ginger
Provides the characteristic spicy aroma and flavour of the wine.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture daily for 6 to 7 days. Stirring keeps the raisins and pulp in contact with the liquid and releases carbon dioxide, so fermentation proceeds evenly and the yeast does not stall under a crust of solids.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon, orange, 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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