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Drink

Elder Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiling elderberries, sugar, egg whites, ginger, and yeast, then aged in a brandy‑rinsed barrel.

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

Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pour boiling water over the berries and let it stand for 12 hours.

  2. Draw off the liquid and boil it with the sugar.

  3. While boiling, beat the egg whites and clarify the mixture; skim it clear.

  4. Add pounded ginger to the wine and boil a little longer.

Ferment and barrel

  1. When cool, add a toast rubbed in yeast and let it ferment for 1-2 days.

  2. Transfer the wine into a barrel rinsed with brandy.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  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

Elderberries (in the method)
Provide the main flavour, colour and tannins of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sweetens the finished wine.
Egg whites
Collect suspended particles during boiling so they can be skimmed off, clarifying the wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Skimming the clarified mixture. Egg whites must be beaten into the boiling liquid and skimmed off once they set, so they carry away suspended particles. Skimming too early or too late leaves cloudiness in the wine.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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