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Essence of Allspice for Mulling of Wine

A tincture made by steeping bruised allspice in brandy, oil of pimento, and strong spirit of wine, used to flavor gravies or mulled wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and brandy work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 209 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Essence of Allspice for Mulling of Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavouring

  1. Mix the oil of pimento and strong spirit of wine gradually.

Use the flavouring

  1. Add a few drops of this mixture to a pint of gravy or mulled wine.

  2. For mulled wine, use Burgundy for Bishop, old Rhenish for Cardinal, or Tokay for Pope.

Make the tincture

  1. To make tincture, steep bruised allspice in brandy for two weeks, shaking occasionally.

  2. After steeping, pour off the clear liquor for use in gravies or to flavor potted meats.

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. Spirit + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  2. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Allspice + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Wine + allspicetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together749 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Bruised allspice
Bruising exposes more surface, so the brandy draws out its aromatic compounds.
Brandy
Alcohol extracts the aromatic compounds from the allspice during steeping.
Oil of pimento
A concentrated aromatic oil that gives a strong allspice-like flavour.
Strong spirit of wine
Alcohol that helps the oil blend evenly into the liquid.

The step that matters

Mixing the oil of pimento gradually. Essential oils do not dissolve in water-based liquids, so adding the oil slowly to the spirit helps it disperse evenly instead of floating in droplets.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, wine, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, wine, brandy. 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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