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Very Good Elderberry Wine

A fermented wine made from elderberries, sugar, ginger, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Very Good Elderberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the berries, which should be ripe and fresh and gathered on a dry day, clean them from the stalks, and measure them into a tub or large earthen pan.

  2. Pour boiling water on the berries, in the proportion of two gallons to three of berries, press them down into the liquor, cover them closely, and let them remain until the following day.

  3. Strain the juice from the fruit through a sieve or cloth.

  4. Squeeze from the berries the greater part of the remaining juice, and mix the squeezed juice with that which was first poured off.

  5. Measure the whole mixture.

Make the wine

  1. Add to it three pounds of sugar, three-quarters of an ounce of cloves, and one ounce of ginger, for every gallon.

  2. Boil the mixture for twenty minutes, keeping it thoroughly skimmed.

  3. When the mixture is something more than milk-warm, put it into a perfectly dry and sweet cask (or if only a very small quantity of wine is made, into large stone bottles).

  4. Fill the cask or bottle entirely.

  5. Pour very gently into the bung hole a large spoonful of new yeast mixed with a very small quantity of the wine.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

58Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
14 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries (in the method)
Provide the juice, colour and main flavour of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness that balances the tannins.
Yeast (in the method)
Ferments the sugars in the juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture thoroughly skimmed while boiling. Boiling draws foam and impurities to the surface; removing them keeps the wine clear and reduces off-flavours that would otherwise carry into the fermenting liquid.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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