Skip to main content
Drink

Rhubarb Wine

A fermented beverage made from rhubarb, water, sugar, lemon, isinglass, and liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rhubarb Wine

Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Combine sliced rhubarb and boiling rainwater in a pan or tub.

  2. Cover with a thick cloth and stir three times a day for a week.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth.

Make the wine

  1. Add loaf sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Melt isinglass in 1 pint of the liquor over low heat.

  3. Allow to cool before adding to the rest of the mixture.

  4. Transfer to a cask.

  5. Once fermentation is complete, seal it.

Bottle and rest

  1. Bottle the wine in March.

  2. It will be ready to use by June.

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. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rhubarb
Provides the main flavour and the acidic base of the wine.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness in the finished wine.
Isinglass
Helps fining, clearing the wine by collecting suspended particles for removal.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness to balance the sugar.

The step that matters

Melting the isinglass. Isinglass must be fully dissolved in the warm liquor over low heat before it is added. Overheating or leaving lumps can leave it unevenly dispersed, so it may not clear the wine properly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes