Skip to main content
Drink

Imitation Port Wine

A homemade beverage made by blending cider, port wine, elderberry juice, brandy, and cochineal, then clarifying and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cider and port wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

Imitation Port Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the colour

  1. Bruise the cochineal very fine and mix it with the brandy in a stone bottle.

  2. Let it sit for at least two weeks, shaking it well once or twice a week.

Blend and age

  1. In a 9‑gallon cask, combine 5 gallons of cider, elderberry juice, Port wine, and the brandy mixture.

  2. Rinse the bottle that contained the brandy with the remaining gallon of cider and pour it into the cask.

  3. Seal the cask tightly and let it sit for six weeks before bottling.

  4. If the wine is not clear, add 2 ounces of isinglass and let it sit for another two to three weeks.

  5. For a rougher flavor, add 1 to 1½ ounces of alum if needed.

Bottle and store

  1. Store the bottled wine in a cool place; it will be ready in a few months but improves with age.

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. Cider + port winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Elderberry + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14 recipes

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

  5. Cider + elderberrytop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Cochineal
Supplies the deep red colour that gives the wine its port-like appearance.
Elderberry juice
Adds fruity body and deep colour to the blend.
Brandy
Extracts the colour from the cochineal and raises the alcohol content, preserving the wine.
Cider
Forms the base of the wine, providing most of the liquid and mild fruit sweetness.

The step that matters

Letting the cochineal steep in brandy. Cochineal must be finely bruised and given at least two weeks in brandy so the colour fully dissolves. Rushing this leaves the blend pale and gritty.

Swap the elderberry

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Currantfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Elderberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, port wine, 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.

You might also like

Elderberry WineElderberry Wine35 recipesWine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipes