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Drink

Elder Wine

A fermented beverage made from elderberries, sugar, ginger, cloves, raisins, yeast, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Elder Wine

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pick the elderberries from their stalks and pour boiling water over them.

  2. Cover and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Strain through a sieve, squeezing all the juice from the fruit.

  4. Measure the liquid and add the specified amount of sugar.

Boil and ferment

  1. Boil with the other ingredients (except the yeast and brandy) for 1 hour, skimming constantly.

  2. Let it cool until milk warm, then add the yeast to a clean cask.

  3. Allow it to ferment for 2 weeks, then add the brandy.

  4. Bung up the cask and let it stand for 3 to 4 months 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.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the sweetness and alcohol content of the wine.
Brewer's yeast
Converts the sugars in the juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to raise the alcohol level and fortify the wine.
Raisins
Add body, extra sugars and fruity flavour to the wine.

The step that matters

Add the yeast at milk warm. Yeast works best at lukewarm temperatures. If the liquid is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is too cold fermentation starts slowly or not at all.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, clove, brandy, wine):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, clove, brandy, wine. 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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