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English Wines

A homemade wine made with water, sugar, ginger, lemon, raisins, yeast, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

English Wines

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Combine the water and sugar in a large vessel.

  2. When lukewarm, add the yeast and stir well.

  3. Cover and let it work for 2 days and nights.

  4. On the third day, squeeze the lemons over the sugar and pour into the barrel.

  5. Add the raisins, isinglass, sugar, water, and peels.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Leave the bung out to allow it to work, placing a large vessel underneath to catch overflow.

  2. Strain any fruit that overflows and skim off the head that rises.

  3. Ensure the liquor is clear before returning it to the cask.

  4. Stir the cask every two days until fine.

  5. When fine, draw off enough to leave room for brandy, then add the brandy and seal the cask.

Bottle

  1. After 1 month to 6 weeks, it may be bottled for use.

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. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides the sweetness and alcohol in the finished wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the working of the must.
Lemons
Supply acidity and aroma from their juice and peel.
Egg whites
Help fine and clarify the liquor as they settle out impurities.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to fortify the wine and stabilize it.

The step that matters

Ensure the liquor is clear before returning it to the cask. Fermentation throws up sediment and fruit residue. Clearing and fining before returning the liquor to the cask keeps the wine from becoming cloudy or refermenting in storage.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, raisin, brandy. 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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