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
Harvest the rhubarb stalks.
Remove the leaves from the stalks.
Bruise the stalks to create a pulp.
Place the pulp in a large vat.
Add 1 gallon of cold spring water to the vat.
Let the pulp infuse for three days.
Stir the mixture three to four times daily.
On the fourth day, press the pulp.
Strain the liquid into another vat.
Ferment
Add 3 lb of white loaf sugar to the liquid.
Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Allow the mixture to ferment.
After 4-6 days, skim off the crust that forms.
Transfer the wine to a cask without sealing it.
If fermentation continues, rack the wine into another cask.
After two weeks, seal the cask.
Let the wine sit until March of the following year.
Rack the wine again and seal the cask.
If the wine has lost sweetness, add more sugar.
Bottle and serve
Bottle the wine.
Enjoy the wine in the summer.
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.
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Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provide the main flavour and acidity, and the juice that becomes the wine.
- White loaf sugar
- Feeds fermentation and provides sweetness in the finished wine.
- Cold spring water
- Extracts juice from the bruised pulp and forms the body of the wine.
The step that matters
Sealing the cask after fermentation. Leaving the cask unsealed early lets air in and allows the wine to keep fermenting, while sealing too soon can trap active fermentation. Timing the seal and racking controls clarity and stability.
“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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