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Cowslip Wine, Superior

A fermented wine made from cowslips, sugar, lemon juice, egg whites, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cowslip Wine, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Boil sugar, lemon juice, water, and egg whites for 30 minutes, skimming frequently.

  2. Place cowslips in a clean, dry tub.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the cowslips.

  4. Optionally, add thin rinds of lemons, avoiding any white pith.

  5. Stir with a wooden stick for a few minutes.

  6. Let the mixture cool to lukewarm.

Ferment

  1. Add a thin slice of dry toasted bread spread with fresh yeast.

  2. Let the mixture stand in a cool place for 3-4 days.

  3. Strain the liquor.

  4. Squeeze the flowers to extract all goodness.

Cask and bottle

  1. Transfer the wine to a cask rinsed with pale brandy.

  2. Bung loosely until fermentation stops.

  3. Bung securely.

  4. Bottle the wine after 3 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provides the sweetness and the food for yeast to turn into alcohol.
Cowslips
Supply the flower flavour and aroma that define the wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a clean fermentation.
Egg whites
Bind impurities during boiling so they rise and can be skimmed off, clarifying the liquor.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Bung loosely until fermentation stops. While fermentation is active it releases carbon dioxide, which can build pressure and break a tightly sealed vessel. Sealing too early can burst the cask, while sealing only after activity ends keeps the wine stable.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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