Skip to main content
Drink

Mulled Wine

A warm beverage made from sherry wine, water, sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wine base

  1. Combine the sherry wine, water, cinnamon, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Warm the mixture on the side of the stove, avoiding boiling.

Add the eggs

  1. Beat the egg whites with 3 teaspoons of sugar until stiff.

  2. Beat the yolks and fold them into the egg whites.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the warm wine mixture.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat over medium until it begins to rise, then remove from heat.

  2. Pour into glasses and serve warm.

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Sherry + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sherry wine
Forms the main flavor base and liquid of the drink.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the wine's dryness.
Eggs
Whites whip into a foam, and yolks thicken the drink as they gently heat.
Cinnamon or nutmeg
Adds warm spiced aroma to the wine.

The step that matters

Warm the egg mixture gently. Egg proteins set when heated, so high heat or boiling can scramble the eggs and leave curds instead of a smooth, thickened drink. Warming slowly and stirring keeps the texture even.

“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