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Elder Flower Wine

A homemade wine made from elder flowers, sugar, lemon juice, yeast and raisins, fermented and then cask-aged.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin 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 Flower Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flower liquor

  1. Strip the flowers or blossoms of the elder tree from the stalks.

  2. To every quart of flowers allow one gallon of water and three pounds of white sugar.

  3. Boil and skim the sugar and water.

  4. Pour the hot sugar and water on the flowers.

  5. When cool, mix in some lemon juice and some yeast.

  6. Allow six gallons of the liquor the juice of six lemons, and four or five tablespoonfuls of good yeast stirred in very hard.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Let it ferment for three days in a tub covered with a double blanket.

  2. Strain the wine through a sieve.

  3. Add six whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth, or an ounce of melted isinglass.

Cask and age

  1. Put the wine into a cask in whose bottom you have laid four or five pounds of the best raisins, stoned.

  2. Stop the cask closely.

  3. Leave the wine in the cask for six months, until it is fit to bottle.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

656Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
128 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0
Liquornot in our table0

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

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

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

  2. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Elder flowers (in the method)
Provide the characteristic floral aroma and flavour of the wine.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and sweetness balance.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a clean fermentation.
Raisins
Add fruit body and nutrients that help feed the fermentation.
Isinglass
Fines the wine, helping suspended particles settle so it clears.

The step that matters

Leave the wine in the cask for six months. Clarification and mellowing need time to finish; bottling early can leave a cloudy, harsh, or still-fermenting wine.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, egg. 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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