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Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made with ginger, raisins, whiskey, and lemon, sweetened with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ginger liquid

  1. Boil water, sugar, and ginger for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove scum as it rises.

  3. Let the liquid cool overnight.

Assemble and age

  1. Chop raisins.

  2. Place raisins in a 12-gallon cask with whiskey and lemon slices.

  3. Add the cooled liquid to the cask.

  4. Strain out any sediment.

  5. Bung the cask immediately as there is no fermentation.

  6. After 2 weeks, mix in 1 ounce of dissolved isinglass for fining.

  7. Bottle the wine after another 2 weeks.

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. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Ginger + spirittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide fruit sweetness and body to the wine.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the sugar that makes up the body of the wine.
Whiskey
Adds alcohol, which preserves the wine and contributes warmth and aroma.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Remove scum as it rises. Skimming foam and impurities while boiling keeps the liquid clear and prevents off flavors and cloudiness in the finished wine.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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