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Drink

Mulled Wine

A warm beverage made by simmering water, spices, sugar, and wine, sometimes with brandy and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced syrup

  1. Combine water, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until it forms a syrup.

  3. Remove from heat.

Heat the wine

  1. Add the claret.

  2. Return to heat. Do not let it boil.

  3. Add a bit of lemon peel to the wine before heating.

Add brandy and serve

  1. Heat the brandy with the sugar until dissolved.

  2. Add the dissolved brandy to the wine if desired.

  3. Serve very hot in glasses, adding a thin slice of lemon to each glass.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Claret
Forms the base of the drink, providing the wine flavour and liquid volume.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tannins and acidity of the wine.
Brandy
Adds alcohol strength and a warming, rich aroma to the drink.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet spice aroma that infuses into the liquid.

The step that matters

Return to heat. Do not let it boil.. Boiling wine drives off alcohol and aroma and can make the drink taste harsh or flat. Heating it gently keeps it warm and fragrant.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, sugar, brandy. 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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