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Ginger Wine

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 9 gallons of water with 12 lb. loaf sugar, 12 lb. moist sugar, 12 oz. sliced ginger, and the rind of 8 lemons for 30 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture regularly.

  3. Let the mixture cool until lukewarm.

Ferment

  1. Transfer the mixture to a clean cask.

  2. Add the lemon juice, 6 lb. chopped raisins, and 1 teacupful of yeast.

  3. Stir daily for 10 days.

  4. After 10 days, add ½ oz. isinglass and 2 quarts of brandy.

  5. Seal the cask tightly.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the wine after 4 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. Ginger + lemontop 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides sweetness and body in the finished wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during the cask stage.
Ginger
Gives the wine its characteristic spicy aroma and warmth.
Raisins
Add fermentable sugar, fruit flavour and body to the wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mixture must cool to lukewarm before it is transferred and the yeast added, or fermentation may fail.

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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