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Wine, Blackberry

A blackberry wine made by boiling berries with honey, sugar, water, egg whites, and spices, then fermenting and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wine, Blackberry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Mix blackberries, honey, and sugar with soft water and beaten egg whites.

  2. Boil until reduced to 10 gallons, skimming until clear.

  3. Strain into a tub and let stand overnight.

  4. Pour off the clear liquid and boil again for 45 minutes, adding filtered lees and dissolved isinglass.

  5. Skim well and add bruised Jamaica pepper, cloves, and ginger in muslin.

  6. Add orange rinds and lemon juice, then strain the liquor over them.

  7. When cool, stir in fresh yeast.

Ferment and cask

  1. Cover and let ferment for 4-5 days, stirring twice daily and removing scum.

  2. Strain and filter into a cask, tightly bung it, and keep filled.

  3. After fermentation stops, wait a day and add brandy, dissolved isinglass, bitter almonds, and sugar-candy.

  4. Secure the bung, cover with strong paper or coarse linen, and place damp sand over it.

  5. Store in a cool cellar for 2 years before bottling.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blackberries
Provide the fruit flavour, colour, and the sugars that feed fermentation.
Sugar
Supplies the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol, setting the wine's strength and sweetness.
Honey
Adds sweetness and a floral aroma while also feeding the yeast.
Egg whites
Bind fine particles as they set, helping clarify the liquor when skimmed.
Isinglass
A fining agent that collects suspended particles so the wine becomes clear.
Fresh yeast
Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Skimming and fining while boiling. Egg white and isinglass must be skimmed off properly so particles bind and clarify the liquor. Leftover scum or cloudiness can later spoil flavour and clarity in the finished wine.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, sugar, egg, pepper, ginger, orange, lemon):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, sugar, egg, pepper, ginger, orange, lemon. 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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