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Wine, Bitter

A bitter wine made by infusing camomile, wormwood, gentian root, rosemary, and ginger, then fermenting and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rosemary and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Wine, Bitter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Bruise the red and green camomile with the wormwood, removing the stalks.

  2. Combine the bruised herbs, camomile flowers, rosemary, and gentian root in a vessel.

Make the liquid

  1. Boil the soft water with sugar, ginger, and beaten egg whites for 30 minutes, skimming until clear.

  2. Pour the hot liquid over the herbs.

  3. Cover tightly.

  4. Let infuse for 4 days.

  5. Warm part of the infused liquid.

  6. Mix the warmed liquid with the rest.

  7. Add yeast.

Ferment, age and bottle

  1. Strain into a small cask.

  2. When fermentation stops, add dissolved isinglass and brandy.

  3. Seal the cask.

  4. Store the wine for 9 months.

  5. Bottle in pint bottles.

  6. Seal the corks.

  7. Store for an additional 6 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.

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. Rosemary + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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 + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Egg whites
Bind and draw out impurities, clarifying the boiled liquid as they are skimmed off.
Sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and adds sweetness to balance the bitter herbs.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the wine.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Skim the boiled liquid until clear. Egg whites coagulate as the liquid heats and trap cloudy particles, so skimming them off clarifies the wine. Skimming too little leaves haze and sediment in the finished wine.

Swap the rosemary

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Rosemarythe original

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