Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix brown sugar with ½ cup water until dissolved.
Combine ginger essence, cayenne essence, tartaric acid, granulated sugar, and the dissolved brown sugar mixture in a large kettle.
Pour boiling water over the ingredients in the kettle.
Cool and bottle
Stir well and let it cool.
Bottle the mixture when it is cold.
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.
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Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
- Granulated sugar
- Provides the main sweetness and body of the drink.
- Ginger essence
- Supplies the main ginger aroma and flavour.
- Cayenne essence
- Adds a sharp, peppery heat that stands behind the ginger.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds tartness that balances the sweetness.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness with a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
“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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