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Drink

Cowslip Wine

A herbal wine made by boiling sugar and water, steeping citrus rinds and cowslip flowers, then fermenting with yeast.

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

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Cowslip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together for 30 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture carefully, then pour it over the orange rind, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Let it stand until warm (about body temperature).

Ferment

  1. Add the cowslip pips or flowers.

  2. Stir in the fresh yeast spread on toast.

  3. On the next day, transfer the wine into a cask and seal it tightly.

  4. Allow it to ferment for 24 to 48 hours.

  5. Let it remain in the cask for 7 weeks before bottling or drinking.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Lemon + spreadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl acetate (pineapple, fruity).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Cowslip pips or flowers
Supply the flavour and aroma that give the wine its character.
Fresh yeast
Starts fermentation by converting sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the wine balanced.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool to body temperature before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, while cooler liquid ferments slowly. Warm, not hot, lets the yeast grow and start fermentation reliably.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, spread. 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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