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Drink

Cyder White Wine

A fermented apple beverage flavored with honey, spices, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cyder White Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix apple juice and honey in a large container.

  2. Add white tartar and stir well.

Ferment and finish

  1. Enclose cinnamon, cloves, and mace in a bag and suspend it in the mixture while fermenting.

  2. Once fermentation is complete, add rum and mix thoroughly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Apple + rumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple juice
Provides the base liquid and fruit sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Honey
Adds sweetness and fermentable sugar that feeds the yeast.
White tartar
Adds acidity, giving the wine a tart, bright edge.
Cinnamon
Infuses warm, sweet spice aroma into the wine during fermentation.
Cloves
Contributes intense, warm spice aroma as the bag steeps in the mixture.
Rum
Raises the alcohol content and adds its own aroma after fermentation.

The step that matters

Add the rum only after fermentation is complete. Alcohol added early would inhibit or stop yeast activity, so fermentation could stall and leave the wine sweet and unfinished. Adding rum at the end keeps the fermentation controlled and the final alcohol level predictable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, honey, cinnamon, clove, rum):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, honey, cinnamon, clove, rum. 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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