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Drink

Elder-wine

Elder Wine is a fermented beverage made from elderberries, water, sugar, yeast, spices, and optionally sloes or damsons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Elder-wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquor

  1. Boil elderberries in water (1 gallon elderberries to 2 gallons water).

  2. Add 3½ pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquor.

  3. When nearly cold, add a little yeast to the liquor.

Ferment in the cask

  1. The next day, transfer to a cask, leaving the bung out until hissing noise ceases.

  2. Put spices in a muslin bag, boil in a little liquor, and sink the bag in the cask with a pebble.

  3. Use 4-5 ounces of spice for 9 gallons of wine.

  4. Optionally, add a few sloes or damsons to improve the wine.

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

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

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 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 main flavour, colour and body of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness to balance the wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the liquor into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Sloes or damsons
Add tartness and extra colour and depth to the wine.

The step that matters

Leaving the bung out during the first fermentation. Active fermentation releases carbon dioxide, which can build pressure and force liquid out or burst a sealed container. Leaving the bung loose lets gas escape until the hissing stops, so the cask can be sealed safely afterward.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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