Name: English Champagne
Ingredients: 50 pounds rhubarb; 37 pounds fine moist sugar; 4 gallons water; 1-2 additional gallons water

Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar 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 ↓

English Champagne

Ingredients

50 pounds rhubarb
37 pounds fine moist sugar
4 gallons water
1-2 additional gallons water

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

Prepare a tub that holds 15-20 gallons with a tap near the bottom.
Bruise the rhubarb in the tub.
Add 4 gallons of water and stir well.
Cover the tub with a cloth and let it sit for 24 hours.
Draw off the liquid through the tap.
Add 1-2 more gallons of water to the pulp and stir.
Let it settle for 1-2 hours.
Draw off the liquid again.

Make the wash

Mix the two liquors together.
Dissolve the sugar in the mixed liquors.
Clean the tub.
Return the liquor to it.
Cover with a blanket.
Place in a room at least 60°F (15°C) for 24-48 hours until fermentation begins.

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.

Rhubarb + sugartop 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

Rhubarb: Provides the main flavour and acidity, and the juice that becomes the base of the drink.
Fine moist sugar: Feeds the yeast during fermentation, which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Water: Extracts juice from the rhubarb and dilutes the sugar to a fermentable liquid.

The step that matters

Place in a room at least 60°F (15°C) for 24-48 hours until fermentation begins. Yeast activity slows sharply in cold conditions, so a warm enough room is needed for fermentation to start reliably. Fermentation is also what turns the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

“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.