Skip to main content
Drink

Essence Oe Ginger

A ginger infusion made by steeping sliced ginger in wine for three weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Spirit and brandy work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 209 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Essence Oe Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the ginger without bruising it.

  2. Place the ginger in a bottle with the spirits of wine.

Steep

  1. Keep the bottle in a warm place, shaking it daily for three weeks.

Finish

  1. After three weeks, pour off the liquid.

  2. You may leave a similar quantity of brandy or proof spirits on the ginger.

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. Spirit + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  2. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Ginger + spirittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

White jamaica ginger
Supplies the aromatic and pungent flavour that the spirit extracts over time.
Spirits of wine
Acts as the solvent that draws flavour compounds out of the ginger.

The step that matters

Shaking the bottle daily during the steep. Regular agitation keeps the ginger in contact with the spirit, so extraction is more even and complete over the three weeks.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, wine, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, wine, 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.

You might also like

Ginger WineGinger Wine12 recipesWine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipes