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Drink

British Port

A fortified wine mixture of port, cider, brandy, elderberry and sloe juices, colored with cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and cider share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

British Port

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the port wine into a clean 60‑gallon cask that has been fumed with a match.

  2. Add the cider and fill the cask with French brandy.

  3. Add the juice of elderberries and sloes to achieve the desired roughness.

  4. Incorporate cochineal to achieve the desired color.

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. Port wine + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Port wine
Provides the base body and sweetness that defines the drink.
Cider
Adds fruity flavor and volume to the blend.
French brandy
Raises the alcohol content and adds warmth and depth.
Elderberry juice
Contributes fruit flavor, tannin, and a dark color.
Sloe juice
Adds tart astringency that gives the drink its roughness.

“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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