Name: Elder Wine
Ingredients: 4 quarts water; 8 quarts elderberries; 3 pounds moist white sugar; 1 ounce cloves; 1 ounce cinnamon; 2 ounces powdered ginger; yeast; toast

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

Pour 4 quarts of water over 8 quarts of elderberries and let it stand for 2 days.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then strain it.

Add flavourings and yeast

Add 3 pounds of moist white sugar for every gallon of wine.
Stir in 1 ounce of cloves, 1 ounce of cinnamon, and 2 ounces of powdered ginger.
Boil the mixture again.
Dip a piece of toast in yeast and stir it into the liquid.

Bottle

Bottle the elder 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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and the juice that becomes the wine.
Moist white sugar: Supplies sugar that the yeast converts into alcohol during fermentation.
Yeast: Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Toast: Holds the yeast so it can be dipped and stirred evenly into the liquid.
Cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice notes to the wine.
Cinnamon: Adds sweet, warm aroma to the wine.