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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiled water, sugar, lemon rinds, ginger, lemon juice, yeast, raisins, brandy, and isinglass.

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

  1. Boil water with sugar, lemon rinds, and ginger for 30 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture and pour it over the lemon juice.

  3. When nearly cold, add yeast.

  4. Place raisins in a cask with brandy and isinglass.

  5. Strain the mixture into the cask and seal it tightly.

  6. Bottle the wine in 6 to 7 weeks.

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. Lemon + gingertop 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

Lump sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
Raisins
Add fermentable sugar and body, helping feed the fermentation in the cask.
Race ginger
Contributes the characteristic spicy aroma and flavour of the wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps clear the wine by settling out suspended particles.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Add the yeast when the mixture is nearly cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to a hot liquid stops fermentation. Cooling to lukewarm first lets the yeast survive and start working.

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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