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Drink

Almond Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, egg white, yeast, raisins, almonds, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Almond Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Warm the water.

  2. Add the sugar, stirring well from the bottom.

  3. Add the beaten egg white.

  4. Bring to a boil and skim the mixture.

  5. Boil for one hour.

  6. Cool the mixture in a pan.

  7. Add the yeast.

  8. Tun it the next day.

  9. Let it work for ten days, stirring once a day.

  10. Add the chopped sun raisins and pounded almonds.

  11. Stop the cask tightly.

  12. Let it sit for twelve months.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 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

Almonds
Supply the main almond flavour; the bitter almonds give the wine its characteristic bite.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol, so the mixture works and becomes wine.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast, providing the sugar that is converted into alcohol.
Sun raisins
Add sweetness, body and fruit flavour to the wine.
Egg white
Is beaten into the mixture and skimmed off, carrying impurities to the surface to clarify the liquid.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid. Cooling the boiled mixture first lets the yeast start fermentation safely and work during the ten days that follow.

“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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