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Family Wine

A fermented beverage made from birch sap, honey, hops, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and brandy work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Family Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Collect and boil the sap

  1. Bore holes in the birch tree and insert elder fossets to collect sap.

  2. Boil the collected sap with sugar at a ratio of 1 pound of sugar for every pound of sap.

Make the honey mixture

  1. Boil honey and water together for 1 hour, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add hops to the honey-water mixture and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Let the mixture stand overnight, then transfer it to a cask.

Ferment and age

  1. Add brandy to the cask at a ratio of 1 quart for every 12 gallons.

  2. Lightly seal the cask until fermentation is complete, then seal tightly.

  3. Allow the wine to age for 1 year before tapping.

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. Honey + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

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

  4. Hops + brandytop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

  5. Honey + hopstop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Birch tree sap
Forms the liquid base from which the wine's flavour and fermentable sugars come.
Sugar
Provides the sweetness and the sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Honey
Adds fermentable sugars and a distinctive floral, rich flavour to the wine.
Hops
Contributes bitterness that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the wine.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content, strengthening the wine and helping preserve it.

The step that matters

Lightly seal the cask until fermentation is complete. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide, and a tightly sealed vessel too early can build pressure or stall the process. Sealing tightly only after fermentation ends keeps the wine protected from air and spoilage during ageing.

“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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