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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, sugar, hops, citrus rinds, raisins, and wine, clarified with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquor

  1. Boil water, sugar, ginger, hops, and lemon or orange rinds together for 2 hours, skimming carefully.

  2. Pour the mixture, without straining, onto the raisins when cool.

Ferment

  1. Add the juice of the lemons or oranges and rinse the pulp in 1-2 pints of the wine, then strain it into the mixture.

  2. Ferment with yeast by mixing ¼ pint of solid yeast with 1-2 pints of the wine, then incorporate it into the rest.

  3. The next day, combine everything in a fermentation vessel and fill it up for 2 weeks with wine or good new beer.

  4. Dissolve 3 ounces of isinglass in a little of the wine and return it to the mixture to fine it.

  5. After a few days, seal the container tightly.

Bottle

  1. This wine will be ready in 6 months and may be bottled, but it can be fizzy.

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

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

  2. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide fermentable sugars and body, feeding the yeast and adding fruity flavour.
Loaf sugar
Supplies the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Isinglass
Collects suspended particles so they settle, clearing the wine.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the wine.

The step that matters

Fill the vessel and seal it after fermentation starts. Yeast needs an enclosed, oxygen-limited vessel to ferment cleanly; sealing too early can trap pressure, while leaving it open lets spoilage microbes and vinegar bacteria in.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, hops, lemon, wine):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, hops, lemon, wine. 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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