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Rhubarb Wine

A fermented beverage made from rhubarb juice, water, brown sugar, and clarified with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Rhubarb Wine

Why it works: Sugar and rhubarb are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rhubarb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Grate the stalks of rhubarb on a coarse grater.

  2. Strain the juice and mix it with 4 quarts of water and 3 pounds of brown sugar.

Ferment and finish

  1. Fill a demijohn to the brim with the mixture, keeping some aside to top it off as it ferments.

  2. Once fermentation is complete, add a little isinglass to clarify the wine.

  3. Bottle the wine and let it age for two months before using.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation, and adds sweetness and depth.
Rhubarb juice
Supplies the tart, acidic flavour that gives the wine its character.
Water
Dilutes the juice and sugar to a drinkable volume and sets the fermentation liquid.

The step that matters

Topping up the demijohn. Keeping the demijohn full while it ferments limits contact with air, which can let unwanted microbes spoil the wine or oxidise its flavour.

“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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