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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made with water, sugar, ginger, hops, citrus rinds, raisins, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquor

  1. Boil water, sugar, ginger, hops, and rinds together for 2 hours, skimming carefully.

  2. Pour the mixture, without straining, over the raisins when cool.

  3. Add the juice of the lemons or oranges.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Rinse the pulp in 1-2 pints of the wine.

  2. Strain it back into the mixture.

  3. Ferment with yeast by mixing ¼ pint of solid yeast with 1-2 pints of the wine.

  4. Combine with the rest.

  5. Combine everything.

  6. Fill it up for 2 weeks with wine or good new beer.

  7. Dissolve 3 ounces of isinglass in a little wine.

  8. Return it to the mixture to fine it.

  9. Seal the wine tightly a few days later.

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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and becomes the alcohol and sweetness of the wine.
Raisins
Supply sugars and nutrients that feed the yeast and add body to the wine.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Isinglass
Gelatinous fining agent that draws suspended particles out so the wine clears.
Lemons or oranges
Juice and rinds add acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled liquor. Skimming removes foam and impurities that rise while the water, sugar, ginger and hops boil, leaving a cleaner base that ferments and clears better.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, hops, 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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