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Drink

Barley Wine

A drink made by boiling sherry wine and barley gruel, optionally flavored with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Barley Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. Combine the sherry wine and barley gruel in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until only one-third remains.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the tincture of cinnamon if desired.

  2. Serve a teacupful several times a day for strength.

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. Barley + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Sherry + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sherry + barleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Wine + barleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sherry wine
Provides the main flavor and aroma, and its acidity sharpens the drink.
Barley gruel
Adds grain flavor and body, and thickens the liquid as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boil until one-third remains. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sherry and grain flavors, so the finished liquid is stronger and more intense. Stopping too early leaves it thin and diluted, while boiling too long makes it overly thick and harsh.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, wine, barley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine, barley. 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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