Name: Elder Wine
Ingredients: 25 pounds elderberries; 11 gallons water; 1 ounce allspice; 2 ounces ginger; 4 pounds sugar; ¼ pound cream of tartar

Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the elderberries in water for one hour.
Add allspice and ginger to the boiling mixture.
After boiling, strain the liquid over sugar in a tub.
Press all juice from the fruit into the tub.
Add cream of tartar and let the liquid stand for two days.

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.

Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,938 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,137 recipes

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

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Elderberries: Provide the fruit juice and flavour that form the wine's base.
Sugar: Sweetens the liquid and feeds the yeast during fermentation.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity to the liquid, which helps keep the wine stable and bright.