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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, lemon, raisins, ginger, yeast, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wine

  1. Boil water, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, raisins, and bruised ginger together for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture into a cask and let it cool.

  3. Once nearly cold, add the yeast and isinglass.

  4. Stir the wine daily for 14 days.

Bottle and age

  1. When fermentation stops, seal the cask and bottle the wine after 2 months.

  2. Store the bottles for 1 year 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 + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the wine's sweetness and alcohol.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Muscatel raisins
Add fruity sugars and flavour, and nutrients that support the yeast.
Lemons
Contribute acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the wine.
Ginger
Adds its spicy, aromatic flavour to the wine.
Isinglass
Acts as a fining agent that helps clear the wine as it settles.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast only when the mixture is nearly cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to hot liquid can stop fermentation before it starts. Cooling first keeps the yeast alive to convert the sugar into alcohol.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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