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Ginger Wine

A fermented beverage made from ginger, water, sugar, lemons, brandy, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ginger liquor

  1. Boil the bruised ginger in 10 gallons of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add 28 pounds of sugar and boil until dissolved.

Ferment and age

  1. Cool the mixture, then add 14 sliced lemons and 3 pounds of brandy.

  2. Add a little yeast and allow to ferment.

  3. Seal the container and let it sit for 3 months 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.

  1. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Ginger + brandytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ginger and sugar 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

Bruised ginger
Provides the main aroma and spicy flavour that defines the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the final sweetness and alcohol level.
Yeast
Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Lemons
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished wine.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the yeast-related ingredients. Adding lemons, brandy or yeast to liquid that is still hot can kill the yeast and stop fermentation. Letting the mixture cool first keeps the yeast active so the wine ferments properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar, 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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