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Pie-Plant Wine

A fermented wine made from rhubarb stalks, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pie-Plant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Pour boiling water over the cut rhubarb stalks.

  2. Add brown sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Cover and let stand for 24 hours.

  4. Add bruised spices for flavoring as desired.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and let it ferment for a few days.

  2. Bottle the wine when fermentation is complete.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb stalks
Supplies the fruit flavour and acidity that give the wine its character.
Brown sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and adds sweetness and molasses notes.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic spice flavour to the finished wine.
Cloves
Adds a strong aromatic spice flavour to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture and let it ferment for a few days.. Fermentation converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Bottling before it is complete can leave residual sugar that keeps fermenting in the bottle and may build dangerous pressure.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg. 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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