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Ginger Wine

A fermented ginger wine made with water, sugar, lemon zest, ginger, yeast, raisins, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger 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

Boil and cool

  1. Boil the water, sugar, lemon zest, and bruised ginger in a clean copper pot for 1 hour.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a large tub or pan to cool.

  4. Once nearly cold, add the fresh yeast.

Ferment and finish

  1. The next day, pour everything into a dry cask along with the strained lemon juice and chopped raisins.

  2. Stir the mixture daily for two weeks.

  3. After two weeks, add the brandy and gradually seal the cask.

  4. In a few weeks, the wine will be ready to bottle.

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 + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + raisintop 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. Lemon + raisintop 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

Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
Lemons
Zest adds aroma and lemon juice adds acidity that brightens the finished wine.
Bruised ginger
Adds its spicy, aromatic flavour to the wine during boiling.
Raisins
Add fruity sweetness and flavour, and nutrients that support the fermenting yeast.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to raise the alcohol content and help preserve the wine.

The step that matters

Add the yeast only once the liquid is nearly cold. Yeast is a living organism that is damaged or killed by very hot liquid. Cooling the mixture first lets the yeast survive and start fermenting the sugar.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, raisin, 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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