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Rhubarb Wine

A fermented beverage made from rhubarb, sugar, water, ginger, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rhubarb Wine

Why it works: Rhubarb and ginger work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Mash the rhubarb in a large clean tub or pan.

  2. Add an equal quantity of water to the mashed rhubarb.

  3. Let it stand for 8 days.

  4. Strain the mixture and pour the liquid into a clean barrel.

Ferment

  1. Add 26 lbs of Demerara sugar and 9 oz of crushed ginger to the barrel. Stir thoroughly to mix all ingredients.

  2. Leave the mixture to ferment with the bung loosely placed on top.

  3. After fermentation ceases, add 1 oz of isinglass on top of the liquid.

Mature

  1. Bung up the barrel, placing a piece of thin linen under the bung.

  2. Let it mature for 6 to 12 months 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rhubarb + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Rhubarb
Provides the main flavour and the fruit base of the wine.
Demerara sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and sweetness in the finished wine.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma to the wine.
Isinglass
Clears the wine by helping suspended particles settle out after fermentation.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass after fermentation ceases. Isinglass is a fining agent that clears the wine by drawing suspended particles down. Adding it while fermentation is still active can disturb the process and prevent the wine from clearing well.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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