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Rhubarb 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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Rhubarb Wine

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 ↓

Rhubarb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

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

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

  3. Put the pulp into an open vat or tub and add 1 gallon of cold spring water.

  4. Let it infuse for three days, stirring three to four times a day.

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

Ferment

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

  2. Let it ferment; when fermentation subsides and a crust forms, skim it off.

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

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

Age and bottle

  1. After about two weeks, seal the cask and let it sit until March of the next year.

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

  3. Ensure the cask is full and let it sit for a month or six 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.

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. 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 main flavour and the fruit base that is pulped and steeped.
White loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and sealing the cask. Sugar feeds the yeast, so sweetness left after fermentation depends on how much is added and when. Sealing too early can trap active fermentation, which may build pressure or burst the cask. Racking clears sediment, so the wine should be left to settle before bottling.

“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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