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Another Way to Make Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made with brown sugar, egg whites, ginger, lemon and Seville orange juices, and fortified with brandy or whisky.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Stir brown sugar and egg whites into water in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture and remove the scum that rises.

  3. Add the white ginger and boil for 45 minutes, skimming again.

  4. Let the mixture cool to milk-warm, then transfer to a wooden vessel.

Ferment and age

  1. Add fresh yeast and the juices of lemons and Seville oranges.

  2. Allow to ferment for 3 days, then transfer to a cask with brandy or whisky.

  3. Seal the cask loosely and let it sit for 8-10 weeks 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  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

Brown sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Fresh yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
White ginger
Adds the spicy, aromatic flavour that defines the wine.
Egg whites
Bind impurities and cloudy particles so they rise and can be skimmed off.
Seville oranges and lemons
Add acidity and citrus aroma that brighten the wine.
Brandy or whisky
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled mixture. Egg whites coagulate and carry impurities to the surface as scum. Removing it during boiling keeps the wine clear and prevents off-flavours during fermentation.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, orange, brandy. 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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