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Drink

Mulled Claret

A warm beverage made by simmering claret with water, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Claret

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the spices

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

  2. Boil for 1 minute, then strain out the spices.

Add the wine and serve

  1. Add claret and sugar to the saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until hot, but remove it from the heat before it boils.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Forms the liquid base and carries the main wine flavour of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the wine's acidity and the warm spices.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the spiced wine.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm aroma that gives the drink its spiced character.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling. Boiling the wine drives off alcohol and can make it taste harsh or bitter. Heating it only until hot keeps the flavour rounded and the wine's aromas intact.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Fennelfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, sugar. 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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