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Drink

British Sherry, or Malt Wine

A fortified beverage made from sweet wort, sugar, raisins, Seville orange rinds and juice, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wort and malt work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

British Sherry, or Malt Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wort and sugar water

  1. Cool the sweet wort.

  2. Pour the cooled wort into a 10-gallon cask.

  3. Boil water with the lump sugar for about 15 minutes, skimming off the scum. Let the sugar water cool.

  4. Pour the cooled sugar water into the cask.

Ferment and flavour

  1. Add a little good yeast.

  2. Allow the mixture to ferment for 2–3 weeks.

  3. Add the chopped raisins.

  4. Allow fresh fermentation to subside.

  5. Add the rinds and juice of the Seville oranges and the brandy.

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. Wort + malttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Wort + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenethyl acetate (rose, honey).

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

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

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

Pale malt wort
Provides the fermentable sugars and malt body that the yeast converts into alcohol.
Lump sugar
Adds extra fermentable sugar, raising alcohol content and sweetness in the finished drink.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the whole fermentation.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness, fruity flavour and some residual sugar for fermentation.
Seville oranges
Their rind and juice add bitter aromatic oil and acidity for citrus character.
Brandy
Adds spirit strength and warming aroma to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Allow fresh fermentation to subside. Adding the raisins, oranges and brandy while fermentation is still vigorous can disturb the yeast and leave the drink cloudy or unstable. Waiting for activity to slow lets the yeast settle so the flavourings and spirit blend in cleanly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wort, malt, sugar, 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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