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Drink

Mulled Claret or Port

A warm drink made by heating claret or port with sugar, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Claret or Port

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the wine, sugar, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Heat over a gentle fire until it is almost boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and serve warm.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Claret or port
Provides the wine base that carries the spices and gives the drink its body and acidity.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tannins and acidity of the wine.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic flavour that infuses into the wine as it heats.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the wine as it heats.

The step that matters

Heat over a gentle fire until it is almost boiling. Heating gently lets the spices release their flavour slowly without boiling off alcohol or making the wine taste harsh. Bringing it to a hard boil can also cause the wine to taste bitter and flat.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg. 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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