Skip to main content
Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, raisins, lemon, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Stone and halve the raisins, then place them in a large clean pot with the water, sugar, and bruised ginger.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour, skimming frequently.

  3. Transfer the liquid to a large earthenware bowl or wooden tub and let it cool until milk-warm.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir in the yeast.

  2. The next day, pour the mixture into a clean, dry cask and add the lemon juice, then lightly seal it.

  3. Stir the wine daily for 2 weeks, then tighten the seal.

  4. Let the wine sit undisturbed 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.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger 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

Brewer's yeast
Starts fermentation, converting the sugar into alcohol and carbonation.
Loaf sugar
Provides the fermentable sugar that feeds the yeast and gives the wine its sweetness.
Raisins
Add body, fruity flavour and natural sugars that support fermentation.
Whole ginger
Contributes the characteristic warm, spicy aroma and flavour.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool to milk-warm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so it must be cooled to a warm temperature before it is stirred in to ensure fermentation starts reliably.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

You might also like

Raisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipes