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Drink

Wine, Mulled, Claret

A warm beverage made by simmering claret with spices, sugar, lemon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Wine, Mulled, Claret

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cloves, cinnamon, lemon peel, lemon slices, sugar, and water in an enamelled saucepan.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add nutmeg or ginger, claret, and brandy or Curacao.

  4. Heat until nearly boiling, then strain.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 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

Claret
Forms the wine base that supplies most of the liquid and the drink's main flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the drink.
Cloves
Adds pungent, aromatic spice flavour as the mixture simmers.

The step that matters

Heat until nearly boiling, then strain. Boiling wine drives off alcohol and can make its flavour harsh, so heating only until nearly boiling keeps the claret smoother. Straining removes the spices and lemon so the drink does not become bitter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, 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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