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Ginger Wine

A fermented ginger wine with raisins, lemon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the water with the sugar for half an hour and skim it.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add a little yeast and transfer it to a cask.

Ferment

  1. For every gallon of water, add 4 ounces of braised ginger, the juice and rind of 2 lemons, and 12 pounds of chopped raisins.

  2. Stir well for 3-4 days until fermentation is complete.

Finish and age

  1. After fermentation, add 10 quarts of good brandy and seal the cask tightly.

  2. Let it stand for 3 months 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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Braised ginger
Adds the warm, spicy aroma and flavour that defines the wine.
Raisins
Contribute sugars and body, and feed the fermentation.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and stabilises the finished wine.

The step that matters

Sealing the cask after adding brandy. Brandy is added only after fermentation is complete. Adding it earlier would halt the yeast, and a loose seal lets air in, which can spoil the wine and stop it maturing properly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, raisin, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, raisin, 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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