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To Mull Wine

A sweetened wine beverage made by boiling water, spices, sugar, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

To Mull Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the water with the spices and sugar until it forms a thick syrup, being careful not to let it burn.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the port wine and stir gently until it is just about to boil.

  2. Serve immediately, adding thin strips of orange rind for extra flavor if desired.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a thick syrup that sweetens and balances the port.
Port wine
Provides the main body, alcohol and fruity flavor of the drink.
Spices
Infuse the syrup with aromatic warmth from cinnamon, ginger and cloves.

The step that matters

Boiling the water with sugar and spices. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates, and it can scorch and turn bitter if left unattended on high heat. Stir and watch the pan closely so the syrup thickens without burning.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, clove, sugar, port wine):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Pearfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, ginger, clove, sugar, port wine. 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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