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Drink

Parsnip Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiled parsnips, sugar, yeast, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Clean and slice the parsnips.

  2. Boil the parsnips in the water until soft.

  3. Remove the parsnips, mash them, and return to the boiling water.

  4. Stir well and strain through a fine sieve.

Make the must

  1. Add sugar to the strained liquid and adjust the volume with boiled water.

  2. When nearly cold, transfer to a cask and add yeast and cream of tartar.

Ferment and age

  1. Stir daily until fermentation subsides, about 10 to 14 days.

  2. Seal the cask and let it sit for 3 to 6 months.

  3. Bottle the wine after 6 months.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the sugars and flavour that the wine is built from.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness and alcohol level.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, which helps the wine taste balanced and supports a clean fermentation.

The step that matters

Transfer to the cask when nearly cold. Adding yeast to liquid that is still hot can kill it, stopping fermentation before it starts. Waiting until the liquid is nearly cold protects the yeast and lets fermentation begin reliably.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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