Name: Mulled Wine
Ingredients: 1 pint of wine; 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; 2-4 cloves; sugar to taste; slices of toasted bread; 4 egg yolks; a little cold wine

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the wine

Boil the wine with nutmeg, cloves, and sugar.
Serve with slices of toasted bread.

Thicken with the eggs

Beat the yolks of four eggs with a little cold wine.
Mix the egg yolks carefully with the hot wine.
Pour the mixture back and forth until it looks fine.
Heat again over the fire until it thickens.

Serve

Serve with toasted bread.

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.

Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,958 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).
Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Wine: Forms the liquid base that carries the spices and sugar and gives the drink its flavour.
Egg yolks: Thicken the liquid as they heat, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and tannins of the wine.
Nutmeg: Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the hot wine.
Cloves: Add a strong, aromatic spice note to the hot wine.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg yolks with the hot wine. Egg yolks begin to set around 65 to 70 °C, so if hot wine is added too fast they scramble into lumps. Adding the hot wine gradually while stirring, and keeping the heat gentle, lets the yolks warm evenly and thicken smoothly.