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To Mull Wine

A warm wine infusion made by boiling water with spices and sugar, then adding port wine and orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Mull Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 1½ cups of water with ¼ ounce each of cinnamon, bruised ginger, and cloves, along with 3 ounces of sugar until it forms a thick syrup, ensuring it does not burn.

  2. Pour in 1 pint of port wine and stir gently until it is just about to boil.

  3. Serve immediately, adding 1-2 thin strips of orange rind for extra flavor.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the drink and thickens the spiced syrup as it boils down.
Port wine
Forms the base of the drink, adding body, fruitiness and alcohol.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that carries the spiced flavour of the drink.
Cloves
Contributes strong warm aroma and a pungent spiced flavour.
Ginger
Adds a bright, peppery warmth that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the spiced syrup. Sugar and water must reach a thick syrup without burning. Scorched sugar turns bitter and dark, spoiling the drink's flavour, so the pan needs close attention and steady heat.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, clove, sugar, port wine):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Pearfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, ginger, clove, sugar, port wine. 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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