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Bhubabb Wine

A fermented beverage made from rhubarb stalks, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Bhubabb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Pluck the rhubarb stalks and cut off the leaves.

  2. Bruise the stalks in a large mortar to reduce them to a pulp.

  3. Put the pulp into a vat and add 1 gallon of cold spring water.

  4. Let it infuse for 3 days, stirring 3-4 times daily.

  5. On the fourth day, press the pulp and strain off the liquid into a vat.

  6. Add 3 lb of white loaf sugar to the liquid and stir until dissolved.

Ferment and rack

  1. Allow the mixture to ferment; when fermentation subsides and a crust forms, skim it off.

  2. Transfer the wine to a cask without sealing it.

  3. If fermentation occurs in the cask, rack it into another cask.

  4. After about 2 weeks, seal the cask and let it sit until March of the following year.

  5. Rack the wine again and seal the cask; if it has lost sweetness, add more sugar.

  6. Ensure the cask is full and let it sit for 1-6 weeks before bottling.

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. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb stalks
Provides the tart flavour and the juice that forms the base of the wine.
White loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness that remains if fermentation stops early.

The step that matters

Rack and reseal the cask after fermentation. Fermentation in the cask can push out gas and sugar can be lost as the wine works. Racking off the sediment and resealing at the right time keeps the wine clear and lets you judge its sweetness, so you can add sugar if needed.

“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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