Skip to main content
Drink

Parsnip Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiled parsnips, sugar, tartar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and spread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Clean and quarter the parsnips.

  2. Boil the parsnips in 1 gallon of water until soft.

  3. Strain the liquid carefully without crushing the parsnips.

Ferment and cask

  1. Add 3 lb of sugar and ½ oz of crude tartar to the liquid.

  2. When nearly cold, add a slice of toast spread with yeast.

  3. Let it stand for four days in a warm room.

  4. Strain and transfer to a cask, sealing it closely.

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. Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Parsnip + spreadtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl acetate (pineapple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main flavour and body of the wine once boiled and strained.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, which turns it into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Yeast
Converts the sugars in the liquid into alcohol, starting the fermentation.
Crude tartar
Adds acidity, which supports fermentation and gives the wine a crisper taste.

The step that matters

Add the toast spread with yeast when nearly cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must be cool enough not to harm the culture but still warm enough to start fermenting. Adding it while the liquid is still hot can stop fermentation before it begins.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, spread. 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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes