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Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, lemon, sugar, and raisins, aged in a cask.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 wine

  1. Boil water, sugar, ginger, and lemon rind together for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool until warm.

  3. Pour into a cask and add lemon juice, yeast, and raisins.

  4. Stir the mixture through the bung-hole 6 or 7 times.

  5. Add isinglass and brandy, then close the cask.

Age and bottle

  1. After 6 weeks, it will be ready to bottle.

  2. Let it stand for 2 to 3 months before drinking.

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

Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning the liquid into wine.
Lump sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments, and sweetness in the finished wine.
Raisins
Add body, fruit flavour, and nutrients that help the yeast ferment.
Lemons
Contribute acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.
Isinglass
A fining agent that helps clear the wine by settling suspended particles.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, 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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