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Wines and Cordials

A method for making wine from grapes and enhancing spoiled wine with honey, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wines and Cordials

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wine

  1. Gather ripe grapes in dry weather, place them in a press, and squeeze gently to avoid breaking the stones.

  2. Strain the juice and let it settle.

  3. Draw off the clear juice into a well-seasoned cask and seal it for 48 hours.

  4. After 48 hours, vent the cask near the bung-hole and insert a removable peg.

  5. Seal it again for two days.

  6. Wait until the wine is ready to drink in three months.

Add the cordial

  1. Combine 1 pint of clarified honey, 1 pint of water steeped with raisins, and 3 cups of good wine.

  2. Boil until reduced by a third, skimming off the scum.

  3. Pour the hot mixture into the vitiated wine.

  4. Let it sit without sealing.

  5. Place a linen bag with mace, nutmeg, and cloves in the cask for 3-4 days.

  6. Replace the spice bag with a small bag of bruised white mustard-seed.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Grape + honeytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together707 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe grapes
Provide the juice that ferments into the wine.
Clarified honey
Adds sweetness and body to the cordial.
Raisins
Steeped in water to add fruity sweetness and flavour to the cordial.
Yellow bees' wax
Listed in the record but no use is stated in the steps; left unexplained.

The step that matters

Vent the cask after 48 hours. Fermentation gives off gas that builds pressure in a sealed cask. Venting releases it so the cask does not burst, then sealing again lets the wine finish quietly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, raisin, honey, nutmeg, clove, mustard):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, raisin, honey, nutmeg, clove, mustard. 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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