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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, citrus, sugar, raisins, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the lemons and oranges, then extract their juice.

  2. Boil the water, ginger, and sugar for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the fruit peels and add the juice.

  4. When nearly cold, add a little yeast spread on toast.

Ferment

  1. Let it stand for 3 days, stirring twice a day.

  2. Transfer to a cask with the raisins and isinglass.

  3. Continue stirring twice a day for 10 days.

  4. Do not stop until fermentation has ceased.

Rest

  1. It will be ready to use in 3 months.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Raw sugar
Feeds the yeast, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation, and sweetens the wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Raisins
Add natural sugars and fruit flavour, supplying extra material for the fermentation.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour to balance the sweetness.
Seville oranges
Add bitter aroma and acidity from their juice and peel.
Isinglass
Fines the wine, helping suspended particles settle so it clears.

The step that matters

Do not stop until fermentation has ceased. If the wine is bottled or moved while yeast is still active, it can keep fermenting, build pressure, and become cloudy or unstable. Waiting until activity stops keeps the wine stable.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sugar, lemon, orange, spread):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar, lemon, orange, spread. 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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