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Elder-jlower Wine

A fermented beverage made from sugar, raisins, elder flowers, yeast, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Elder-jlower Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil sugar and raisins in water for 1 hour.

  2. Add elder flowers when the mixture is nearly cold.

  3. Stir in yeast and lemon juice.

  4. Let it work for 2 days in a tub.

Age and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and transfer it to a barrel.

  2. Seal the barrel and let it sit for 2 months.

  3. Bottle the wine.

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 + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Raisins
Add sugars, body and nutrients that feed the fermentation.
Elder-flowers
Contribute the characteristic floral aroma of the wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports a healthy fermentation.

The step that matters

Add elder flowers when the mixture is nearly cold. Adding flowers to hot liquid can drive off their delicate aromas and extract bitterness. Waiting until the must is nearly cold protects the floral character and avoids heat-damaging the yeast added later.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. 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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