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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from lemon and Seville orange juice, sugar, raisins, ginger, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the lemons and oranges, then express the juice.

  2. Boil the juice and sugar together for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the peels and let it cool slightly.

  4. Spread yeast on a piece of toast and add it to the mixture.

Ferment and age

  1. Stir the mixture twice a day for 10 days, allowing it to ferment.

  2. After fermentation, transfer the mixture to a cask with the raisins and ginger.

  3. Continue stirring twice a day for 3 days.

  4. Let it stand for 3 months before using.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Seville oranges
Supply juice and acidity, plus aromatic peel oils flavouring the wine.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour to balance the sweetness.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Raisins
Add body, sweetness and extra fruit flavour during fermentation and ageing.
Isinglass
Acts as a fining agent that helps clear the wine as it settles.

The step that matters

Stir twice a day during fermentation. Regular stirring keeps yeast in contact with the sugars and releases carbon dioxide, so fermentation proceeds evenly. Skipping stirring can stall it or leave uneven flavour.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, 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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