Name: Mulberry Wine
Ingredients: Mulberries; Water; Cinnamon (slightly bruised); 6 ounces white sugar-candy (finely beaten); 1 pint white or rhenish wine per gallon of liquor

Why it works: Cinnamon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mulberry Wine

Ingredients

Mulberries
Water
Cinnamon (slightly bruised)
6 ounces white sugar-candy (finely beaten)
1 pint white or rhenish wine per gallon of liquor

Directions

Prepare the juice

Gather mulberries when they are changing from red to black and dry from dew.
Spread them on a cloth or clean floor for 24 hours.
Put the mulberries in a vessel, squeeze out the juice, and drain from the seeds.

Make the liquor

Boil 1 gallon of water for each gallon of juice, skim well, and add bruised cinnamon.
Add 6 ounces of sugar-candy for each gallon of water, then skim and strain.
Add more mulberry juice to the strained liquid.

Finish and store

For each gallon of the mixture, add 1 pint of white or rhenish wine.
Let it stand in a cask for 5-6 days to settle, then bottle and keep in a cool place.

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.

Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,170 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Mulberries: Supply the juice that gives the wine its flavour and colour.
White sugar-candy: Adds sweetness and body to the liquor before fermentation.
White or rhenish wine: Adds alcohol and character to the finished wine.

“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.