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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented alcoholic beverage flavored with cinnamon, pimento, mace, caosicum, ginger, sugar, tartaric acid, cream of tartar, egg whites, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

40 gallons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Macerate the cinnamon bark, pimento, mace, caosicum, and ginger root in alcohol for 15 days.

  2. Strain or filter the mixture.

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar, tartaric acid, and cream of tartar in warm water.

  2. Clarify the syrup with the egg whites.

Blend and age

  1. Add soft water to make a total of 40 gallons.

  2. Color the mixture with cochineal and let it stand for 6 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.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ginger root
Contributes the main spicy, aromatic flavor to the infused alcohol.
Cinnamon bark
Adds warm, aromatic flavor carried into the alcohol during maceration.
White sugar
Provides sweetness and body, balancing the alcohol and acids.
Tartaric acid
Adds acidity, giving the wine a brighter, sharper taste.
Cream of tartar
Contributes acidity and helps stabilize the sugar syrup.
Egg whites
Bind to particles in the syrup so they can be removed, clarifying the liquid.

The step that matters

Clarify the syrup with the egg whites. Egg white proteins coagulate when heated and trap suspended particles, which then rise or settle out. Adding them to a syrup that is not yet hot, or stirring too vigorously, leaves the liquid cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, sugar, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, ginger, sugar, cream, egg. 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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