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Another Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from sugar, water, ginger, lemon, yeast, raisins, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Another Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, water, ginger, and lemon rinds for 30 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  3. Stir in the yeast and let it sit for 1 day.

  4. Squeeze the juice of 4 lemons into the mixture.

Ferment in the cask

  1. Pour everything into a cask that previously held spirits.

  2. Chop the raisins and add them to the cask.

  3. Stir daily for 10 days through the bunghole with a stick.

  4. Dissolve isinglass in a little of the liquor and pour it into the cask.

  5. Seal the cask tightly and bottle the wine in 6 months.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Moist sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol and carbon dioxide, and sweetness.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
Raisins
Add fruit sugars and body, feeding the fermentation and adding flavour.
Isinglass
A fining agent that helps clear the wine by settling suspended particles.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma from the juice and rinds, balancing the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir daily for 10 days through the bunghole with a stick. Regular stirring keeps the yeast in contact with sugar and distributes nutrients and raisin pieces, helping fermentation proceed evenly. Opening the bung to stir also admits air, so the cask should be handled carefully to avoid contamination.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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