Name: Very Good Ginger Wine
Ingredients: 14 quarts water; 12 pounds sugar; ¼ pound bruised ginger; thin rinds of 6 large lemons; juice of 6 lemons; ½ pound sun raisins; 1 large spoonful thick yeast; 1 ounce isinglass; 1 pint brandy

Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 ↓

Very Good Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wine

Boil water, sugar, ginger, and lemon rinds together for 30 minutes.
Let the mixture cool to milk-warm, then transfer to a clean, dry cask.
Add lemon juice and raisins, then stir in yeast.

Ferment and age

Stir the wine daily for 10 days until fermentation ceases.
Add isinglass and brandy, then seal the cask tightly.
After 2 months, the wine will be ready to bottle; let it age longer if too sweet.

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.

Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,242 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 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

Sugar: Provides the sweetness and the food the yeast ferments into alcohol.
Yeast: Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a clean fermentation.
Sun raisins: Add fruit sugars and nutrients that feed the yeast and add body.
Isinglass: Fining agent that clears the wine by settling out suspended particles.
Brandy: Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Stir the wine daily during fermentation. Regular stirring keeps the yeast in contact with the sugars and releases trapped carbon dioxide, so fermentation proceeds evenly until it stops.

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, raisin, 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.

Raisin Wine64 recipes

Lemon Whey33 recipes

Lemon Wine31 recipes

Ginger Pop22 recipes

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Very Good Ginger Wine