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Rhubarb Wine

A fermented beverage made from rhubarb pulp, water, sugar, lemon rind, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rhubarb Wine

Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Bruise the rhubarb in a wooden tub to a pulp.

  2. Weigh the rhubarb and add the cold water.

  3. Let this mixture stand for 36 hours, stirring often.

  4. Strain the mixture and add the sugar and lemon rind.

  5. Stir well and allow it to ferment for a week until fermentation subsides.

Cask and bottle

  1. Strain off into a cask.

  2. If it ferments again, strain off again.

  3. Put the bung in loosely.

  4. After a week or two, put the bung in tightly.

  5. It may be bottled and improves by keeping.

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. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rhubarb pulp
Supplies the fruit flavour and acidity that give the wine its character.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbonation.
Isinglass
Clarifies the wine by helping suspended particles settle out.

The step that matters

Loosely bunging the cask. A loose bung lets carbon dioxide escape while fermentation is active, preventing pressure buildup and bursting. Sealing it tightly only after fermentation has slowed protects the wine from oxidation and spoilage.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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