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Drink

Mulled Wine

A spiced wine beverage made with wine, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wine

  1. Combine the wine, loaf sugar, cloves, and grated nutmeg in a bright tin pot.

  2. Heat gently until nearly boiling, then transfer to a hot silver jug with a lid.

Make the spiced syrup

  1. In a separate pot, mix water, cinnamon, ginger, and sugar; boil until it forms a thick syrup without burning.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour in the port wine and stir gently until just before boiling.

  2. Serve immediately, adding thin strips of orange rind for extra flavor if desired.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine
Forms the liquid base that carries the sweetness and spice flavors.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the wine and balances its acidity.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the wine.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor to the wine.
Cinnamon
Adds aromatic warmth to the spiced syrup.
Ginger
Adds aromatic, pungent flavor to the spiced syrup.
Port wine
Adds richness and body to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Stirring the port in without boiling. Alcohol and delicate aroma compounds evaporate quickly when heated, so the wine should be warmed only until just before boiling to keep its flavor and strength.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sugar, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, port wine):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Pearfits about as well

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