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Clary Wine

A fortified wine made by fermenting water, sugar, yeast, clary flowers, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and honey work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Clary Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Boil 15 gallons of water with 45 pounds of sugar. Skim it and let it cool.

  2. Mix a little cooled water with ¼ pint of yeast, then gradually add more yeast mixture.

  3. Pour the yeast mixture into the large pot of water.

  4. Add 12 quarts of picked clary flowers to the mixture.

Ferment and finish

  1. When bubbling ceases, seal the mixture and let it sit for 4 months.

  2. Rack off the liquid, discarding the dregs, and add 1 gallon of the best brandy.

  3. Seal it again and let it stand for 6 to 8 weeks before bottling.

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. Brandy + honeytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  2. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Provides the sweetness and the fermentable sugar that yeast converts into alcohol.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.
Clary flowers
Supply the aroma and flavour that give the wine its character.

The step that matters

Rack off the liquid, discarding the dregs. Leaving the sediment in contact with the wine can add off-flavours and cloudiness, so the clear liquid must be separated before the brandy is added and the wine rests.

“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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