Name: Another Way to Make Ginger Wine
Ingredients: 10 gallons of water; 14 pounds of brown sugar; 1.5 pounds of ginger; 3 gallons of whisky; Juice of 36 lemons; Juice of 36 bitter oranges; 6 rinds of lemons; 6 rinds of bitter oranges; 2 drops of isinglass

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 ↓

Another Way to Make Ginger Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the water and brown sugar together, stirring frequently and skimming off any foam.
Boil the ginger separately in a small amount of water, then strain it.
Steep the rinds of the lemons and bitter oranges in the whisky overnight.

Combine and age

Once the boiled liquid is cool, combine it with the steeped whisky and add the isinglass.
Transfer the mixture into a cask and let it sit for six weeks before bottling.

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.

Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + bitter orangetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar: Provides sweetness and body to the wine.
Ginger: Gives the wine its warm, spicy aroma and flavour.
Whisky: Adds alcohol and warmth, and carries flavour from the steeped rinds.
Lemon and bitter orange juice: Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness.
Citrus rinds: Release aromatic oils into the whisky, adding fragrance and bitterness.
Isinglass: Acts as a fining agent that helps settle haze so the liquid clears.

The step that matters

Add the whisky only after the boiled liquid has cooled. Alcohol and delicate aroma compounds evaporate readily when hot. Combining the spirit with a hot liquid would drive off some of the whisky's alcohol and the fragrance from the steeped rinds, weakening the final flavour.

Swap the bitter orange

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

Orangefits better
Limefits better
Applefits better
Bitter orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, whisky, lemon. 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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Another Way to Make Ginger Wine