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Drink

To Mull Wine

A warm drink made by simmering cinnamon, cloves, water, port wine, sugar, and nutmeg, served hot with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Mull Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mull

  1. Boil the cinnamon and cloves in water until the flavor is extracted.

  2. Add the port wine, sugar, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Boil together for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with crisp toast.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Port wine
Provides the main body and sweet, fortified wine flavor of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the spices and the wine's tartness.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, woody aroma to the infused liquid.
Cloves
Adds intense, pungent aroma that carries into the liquid during simmering.

The step that matters

Boil the cinnamon and cloves in water until the flavor is extracted. Spices release their aromatic oils gradually into hot liquid. Stopping too early leaves the mull weak and thin, while boiling vigorously for too long can make the spices taste bitter and harsh.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, port wine, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, port wine, sugar, nutmeg. 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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