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Elder Wine

A fermented elderberry beverage sweetened with brown sugar and spiced with allspice, finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Elder Wine

Why it works: Elderberry and allspice share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil the elderberry juice, water, and brown sugar until dissolved.

  2. Add yeast and allow to ferment.

Age and serve

  1. After fermentation, add brandy and seal the container.

  2. Let it sit for three months.

  3. Serve mulled with allspice and warm during winter.

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. Elderberry + allspicetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Brandy + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Elderberry + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Elderberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and colour of the wine.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and body.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol level and helps preserve the wine after fermentation.

The step that matters

Adding the brandy after fermentation. Brandy is added once fermentation has finished because its alcohol would halt the yeast early, leaving sugar unconverted and the wine sweeter and less stable.

Swap the elderberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Elderberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, allspice. 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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