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Drink

Good Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, lemon and orange rinds, ginger, raisins, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Good Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 3 gallons of water with 10 pounds of loaf sugar.

  2. Cool the mixture, reserving 1 quart.

Infuse and combine

  1. In the reserved quart, boil the rinds of the lemons and orange, ginger, and raisins for 30 minutes.

  2. Once nearly cold, mix all together, adding the juices, isinglass, and yeast.

Ferment and rest

  1. Transfer to a cask and stir daily for 2 days or until fermentation ceases.

  2. Close the cask and let it sit for 6 weeks.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol and carbonation, and sweetness.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
Pounded ginger
Adds the sharp, aromatic spice flavour that defines the wine.
Isinglass
A fining agent that helps clarify the wine by settling suspended particles.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports a balanced finish.

The step that matters

Once nearly cold, mix all together, adding the juices, isinglass, and yeast.. Adding yeast while the liquid is still hot can kill it, so the mixture must be nearly cold before fermentation can start properly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange, ginger. 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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