Skip to main content
Drink

English Sherry, or Malt Wine

A fermented beverage made from sugar, water, hops, beer, raisins, sugar candy, bitter almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

English Sherry, or Malt Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquor

  1. Boil sugar and water together for 2 hours, skimming off the scum until the liquid is clear.

  2. Add hops and boil for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Cool the mixture, then add strong beer and cover it.

  4. Let it ferment for 48 hours, then skim and transfer to another container.

  5. If needed, top up with new beer.

Age and bottle

  1. In 2-3 weeks, when the head sinks, add raisins, sugar candy, and bitter almonds.

  2. After 1 year, it can be bottled; for best results, age in wood for 3 years 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Beer + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides the fermentable base that yeast turns into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished drink.
Strong beer
Adds yeast and starts the fermentation that gives the drink its alcohol.
Raisins
Add fruity sweetness and body to the finished drink as it ages.
Hops
Contribute bitterness that balances the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled sugar and water until clear. Scum rising during the long boil carries impurities that would cloud the liquid and can spoil the flavour, so it must be removed as it forms.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, hops, beer, almond, 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.

You might also like

Raisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesSpruce BeerSpruce Beer58 recipesAlmond MilkAlmond Milk18 recipesGinger BeerGinger Beer11 recipes