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Drink

Ginger Wine

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

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

Prepare the wine

  1. Boil the water, sugar, lemon rind, and bruised ginger together for 1 hour in a well-cleaned copper pot.

  2. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Once boiled, transfer the mixture to a large tub or pan to cool.

  4. When nearly cold, add the fresh yeast.

Ferment in the cask

  1. The next day, transfer everything to a dry cask along with the strained lemon juice and chopped raisins.

  2. Stir the wine daily for two weeks.

  3. After two weeks, add the brandy and gradually stop the cask.

  4. In a few weeks, the wine will be ready to bottle.

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. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Raisins
Add fruit sugars and nutrients that feed the fermentation and contribute body and flavour.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to raise the alcohol content and fortify the wine.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast when nearly cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must be cooled to near room temperature before adding it. Adding it too hot can stop fermentation before it starts.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, raisin, brandy. 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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