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Drink

Parsnip Wine

A fermented beverage made from parsnips, sugar, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and sugar work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 190 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquid

  1. In a large pot, bring the water to a boil.

  2. Add the parsnips and boil until tender.

  3. Drain the parsnips through a sieve or colander without pressing.

  4. Return the drained liquid to the pot and add the sugar.

Ferment

  1. Bring to a boil again, then add the hops and boil for 2 hours.

  2. Ferment with yeast in a warm place for 4 days.

  3. Transfer to a container and cover with paper, replacing it if it bursts.

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. Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parsnip + hopstop 51% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Supply the main flavour and the natural sugars that the yeast will ferment.
Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide over several days.

The step that matters

Drain without pressing the parsnips. Pressing forces solids and starchy pulp into the liquid, which can cloud the wine and add rough, earthy flavours. Letting the liquid drain on its own keeps the base clearer and cleaner-tasting.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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