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Drink

Clary Wine

A wine made by steeping Malaga raisins with water, then adding clary tops and fermenting for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Clary Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the raisins finely and place them in a tub.

  2. Add 1 quart of water for each pound of raisins.

Steep and ferment

  1. Let the mixture steep for 10 to 11 days, stirring twice daily and keeping it covered.

  2. Drain the mixture and transfer it to a vessel.

  3. Add the clary tops and seal the vessel tightly for 6 weeks.

Bottle and age

  1. After 6 weeks, bottle the wine and let it age 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

What each ingredient does

Malaga raisins
Provide the sugars that ferment into alcohol, and the fruit flavor of the wine.
Water
Dissolves the raisin sugars and carries them so yeast can work on them.
Clary tops
Add a floral, aromatic flavor to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Sealing the vessel for 6 weeks. The mixture must be kept tightly closed during the long secondary fermentation so that air exposure does not let spoilage microbes or acetic acid-forming bacteria take over the wine.

“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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