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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, sugar, water, lemon, bread, yeast, and raisins.

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

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquid

  1. Combine 4 gallons of water, 8 pounds of white sugar, and ½ pound of bruised ginger in a large pot and boil the mixture.

  2. Pour the boiled liquid into a vessel to cool.

  3. Add the juice and rind of 4 lemons for each gallon of liquid.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Toast a piece of bread, cover it with fresh yeast, and add it to the cooled liquid.

  2. When fermentation begins, transfer the mixture into a cask.

  3. After 2 to 3 weeks, when fermentation subsides, add 2 pounds of stoned raisins.

  4. Bottle the ginger wine after 2 months.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 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

White sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Fresh yeast
Starts fermentation, converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Ginger
Adds its sharp, spicy aroma and flavour to the wine.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour that balance the sweetness.
Stoned raisins
Add fruity sweetness and body, and extra nutrients for the fermentation.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast to the cooled liquid. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must be cooled before the toasted bread and yeast go in. Adding yeast to hot liquid can stop fermentation before it begins.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon, bread. 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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