Skip to main content
Drink

Mulled Ale

A warm ale beverage spiced with nutmeg, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Mulled Ale

Why it works: Nutmeg and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,311 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Mulled Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ale base

  1. Heat 1 quart of good ale with a little nutmeg.

  2. Beat 5 eggs and mix them with a little cold ale.

Combine and thicken

  1. Pour the hot and cold ale back and forth several times to prevent curdling.

  2. Warm and stir the mixture until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 glass of brandy, strain, and serve in tiny glasses.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Thicken the warm ale into a smooth, creamy body as their proteins set with heat.
Good ale
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor and gives the drink its body.
Brandy
Adds a warming, aromatic spirit note to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot and cold ale back and forth. Egg proteins set and curdle if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Gradually mixing the hot ale into the cold egg mixture raises its temperature slowly, keeping the custard smooth.

“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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes