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Drink

Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, ginger, lemon, yeast, and raisins.

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 wort

  1. Boil the water, loaf sugar, and bruised ginger together for 1 hour.

  2. Cool the mixture until tepid, then add the juice and peel of the lemons and the slice of bread with yeast.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Cover the vessel and let it ferment for 2 to 3 weeks.

  2. Before sealing, add 1 lb of slit open raisins for every gallon.

  3. After fermentation, you can rack the wine and add isinglass to clarify it.

Bottle and age

  1. Bottle the wine after 3 to 4 weeks; it will be ready to drink soon and can improve over 1 to 2 years.

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. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Bruised ginger
Adds the characteristic aroma and spicy flavour to the wine.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness, balancing the sweetness of the sugar.
Bread with yeast
Supplies the yeast that starts the fermentation.
Raisins
Add body, extra sugars for fermentation, and fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture until tepid before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed or slowed by very hot liquid. Cooling to lukewarm before adding the bread with yeast lets the yeast survive and start fermenting reliably.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, lemon, bread. 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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