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Elder Wine

A fermented beverage made from raisins, sugar, water, elder berry juice, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Elder Wine

Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Chop the raisins small.

  2. Boil the sugar in water and pour it hot over the raisins.

  3. Stir well every day and let it stand for a week.

  4. Strain the liquor and press out the raisins.

  5. Add the elder berry juice to the liquor.

Ferment and age

  1. Let it ferment for 2-3 days with the yeast on top.

  2. Transfer to a barrel, leaving room for fermentation.

  3. Stop it close and let it stand until clear and sweetness is gone.

  4. Bottle the wine.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + berrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + berrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Supply sugar, body and flavour as the base of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the final sweetness, with residual sugar left behind.
Elder berry juice
Adds colour, tartness and characteristic elderberry aroma to the wine.
Yeast
Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Leave room in the barrel for fermentation. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide and can foam vigorously. Leaving headspace prevents overflow, and a loosely managed vessel lets the wine stay clear of air contamination while it matures.

Swap the berry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Berrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar. 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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