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Drink

Barley Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiled barley, wine, water, herbs, lemon, sugar, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Borage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 102 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Barley Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley water

  1. Boil the French barley in 3 pints of water.

  2. Save 3 pints of the last water used for boiling.

Brew and bottle

  1. Mix the saved water with 1 quart of white wine, ½ pint of borage water, ½ pint of clary water, a little red rose water, the juice of 5 or 6 lemons, ¾ pound of fine sugar, and the thin yellow rind of 1 lemon.

  2. Brew all ingredients together quickly.

  3. Strain the mixture through a strainer and bottle it up.

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. Borage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Barley + boragetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + boragetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

French barley
Provides the base liquid through its boiled water, giving the drink its grain-based character.
White wine
Adds alcohol and acidity that give the drink its body and bite.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the wine and lemon.

The step that matters

Brew all ingredients together quickly. The record gives no timing or temperature for this step, so the cook must judge it. Brewing too long can draw bitterness from the rind and citrus, and the flavours should be combined only until blended.

Swap the borage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, white wine, rose, lemon, sugar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Boragethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, white wine, rose, lemon, sugar. 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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