Skip to main content
Drink

Mulled Wine, with Eggs

A warm beverage made by simmering wine with water, sugar, and eggs, garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Mulled Wine, with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks into two bowls.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  3. In another bowl, beat the yolks with sugar until sweet.

Make the mull'd wine

  1. In a skillet, combine the wine and ½ cup of water and heat gently.

  2. Once the wine mixture is boiling, add the beaten yolks and whites along with the additional ½ cup of water.

  3. Stir briskly until well mixed.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pitcher and grate nutmeg on top.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Wine + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Whites add foam and lightness, while yolks thicken the drink as they warm.
Wine
Provides the main liquid and flavor base of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity and tannins.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the boiling wine. If the hot wine is poured in too fast or not stirred, the yolks can scramble into lumps instead of thickening the drink smoothly. Briskly stirring as the eggs go in disperses them so they cook evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

You might also like

Wine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipesElderberry WineElderberry Wine51 recipes