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Elderberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from elderberries, water, sugar, yeast, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Elderberry Wine

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Elderberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Select dead-ripe elderberries and let them stand for 2-3 days after picking.

  2. Press out the juice.

Make the wine

  1. For every 3 gallons of juice, add 7 gallons of water and 3.5 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid.

  2. Add ½ cup of yeast to the mixture.

  3. Allow the mixture to ferment.

  4. Skim the mixture.

  5. Add 1 ounce of root ginger, 2 ounces of cloves, 3 ounces of pulverized allspice, and 1 quart of French brandy.

  6. Cask or bottle the wine for use.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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
Provide the juice, flavour and colour that form the body of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and supplies the sweetness and alcohol the wine develops.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
French brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, allspice, 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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