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Drink

Brunswick Mum

A fermented herbal drink made from water, malt, oatmeal, beans, fir and birch tops, various herbs, and eggs, aged for two years.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and cardamom share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 18 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Brew the wort

  1. Boil 63 gallons of clear water until reduced by a third.

  2. Brew the water with 7 bushels of wheat malt, 1 bushel of oatmeal, and 1 bushel of ground beans.

  3. When brewing begins, add 3 pounds each of fir and birch tops, and 3 handfuls of carduus benedictus.

  4. Add 1-2 handfuls of flowers of rosa, 1.5 handfuls each of burnet, betony, avens, marjoram, penny-royal, and mother of thyme.

Ferment and age

  1. Include 2 handfuls of elder flowers, 3 ounces of bruised cardamoms, and 1 ounce of bruised barberries after fermentation starts.

  2. Fill the cask when fermentation stops, then add 10 unbroken or cracked new-laid eggs.

  3. Seal the cask tightly and let it age for 2 years before drinking.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Marjoram + cardamomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18 recipes

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

  2. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + cardamomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together46 recipes

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

  4. Wheat + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Wheat + malttop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together60 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

Wheat malt
Provides the fermentable sugars that the yeast turns into alcohol.
New-laid eggs
Added to the cask at the end, as the record gives no further detail on their effect.
Oatmeal
Adds body and a soft, full texture to the brew.
Ground beans
Adds starch and body to the brew as a grain-like base.

Flavor stand-ins for the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, malt, marjoram, thyme, cardamom, egg):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Walnutabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Almondabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, malt, marjoram, thyme, cardamom, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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