Why it works: Port wine and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 462 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓
To Mull Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the water with spices until the flavor is extracted.
Add the port wine, sugar, and nutmeg.
Boil together for a few minutes.
Serve hot with toast.
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.
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Port wine + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together462 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together805 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Clovefits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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