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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, lemon, ginger, yeast, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare the liquor

  1. Boil the water and sugar for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the rinds of the lemons and the bruised ginger.

  3. When the liquid is warm, squeeze in the lemon juice and add a little yeast.

Ferment and rest

  1. Let it ferment for 2 to 3 days.

  2. Transfer to a cask and seal it tightly for 6 weeks.

Finish and bottle

  1. Bottle the wine, adding 1 gallon of brandy for every 12 gallons of wine.

  2. Add the pulp of the ginger and lemons to the cask with a little isinglass to refine the wine.

  3. Remove the pips and white parts of the lemons to avoid bitterness.

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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + brandytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the wine's sweetness.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma to balance the sweetness.
Ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the wine.
Yeast
Converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving fermentation.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content, which helps preserve the finished wine.
Isinglass
Acts as a fining agent that helps clear the wine.

The step that matters

Remove the pips and white parts of the lemons. The white pith under the peel is bitter, and pips can add harshness. Removing them keeps the finished wine from tasting bitter.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, 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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