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Drink

Excellent Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made with ginger, lemon rinds, egg whites, sugar, water, yeast, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Excellent Ginger Wine

Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 ↓

Excellent Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. In a clean boiler, combine water and lump sugar.

  2. Beat and strain the egg whites, then mix them in while the mixture is cold.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Add the bruised ginger and boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the lemon rinds and let it cool.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Once cool, add the yeast and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a barrel and seal it.

  3. After one day, seal the barrel tightly.

  4. Bottle the wine after three weeks and enjoy after three months.

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.

  1. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Lump sugar
Provides the sweetness and the food the yeast ferments into alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning the liquid into wine.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated and collect foam and sediment, helping clarify the liquid.
Common white ginger
Adds the spicy, aromatic flavour that defines the wine.
Lemon rinds
Contribute aromatic oils and acidity that brighten the flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Egg whites rise and coagulate as the mixture heats, carrying impurities to the surface. Skimming removes this foam so the wine stays clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or bitter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, 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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