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Drink

Malt Wine

Malt wine is a fermented beverage made from sweet wort, sugar, raisins, isinglass, yeast, hops, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wort and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry phenethyl acetate, which smells rose, honey. The science ↓

Malt Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wine

  1. Boil the sweet wort for 30 minutes.

  2. When the wort is warm, transfer it to a barrel.

  3. Add 1.5 pounds of sugar, 2 pounds of chopped raisins, 2 ounces of dissolved isinglass, and 1 tablespoon of yeast for each gallon.

  4. Stir the mixture daily with a stick for one to four weeks.

  5. Keep the bung lightly in until fermentation ceases.

  6. Add 1 gallon of brandy for every 16 gallons of liquor.

Age and finish

  1. Seal the cask and let the wine age for 12 months before racking off or bottling.

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. Wort + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenethyl acetate (rose, honey).

  2. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beer + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

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

  5. Wort + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Supplies the fermentable sugar that yeast converts into alcohol, setting the wine's strength.
Malaga raisins
Add body, sweetness and fruit flavour to the wine as they break down during fermentation.
Isinglass
Acts as a fining agent that helps the wine clear as it settles.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Stirring during fermentation. Daily stirring keeps the raisins and yeast in contact with the liquid and prevents a crust from forming, so fermentation proceeds evenly. Keeping the bung lightly in lets carbon dioxide escape while keeping air out, which protects the wine from spoilage.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wort, beer, sugar, brandy, hops):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wort, beer, sugar, brandy, hops. 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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