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Drink

Ginger Wine

A spiced alcoholic beverage made by macerating cinnamon, pimento, mace, capsicum, and ginger in alcohol, then sweetened and clarified.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Wine

40 gallons

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the spirit

  1. Macerate the cinnamon bark, pimento, mace, capsicum, and ginger root in alcohol for 15 days.

  2. Strain or filter the mixture.

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the tartar in warm water to make syrup with the sugar.

  2. Clarify the syrup with the egg whites.

Blend and age

  1. Add soft water to the syrup to make 40 gallons.

  2. Color the mixture with cochineal and let it stand for 6 months before use.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  3. Capsicum + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cinnamon bark
Contributes the warm, sweet spice aroma that flavors the infused spirit.
Ginger root
Adds a sharp, warming aromatic flavor to the infused spirit.
White sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the finished wine by forming the syrup.
Tartar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Egg whites
Bind impurities in the syrup so they can be removed, clarifying the liquid.

The step that matters

Clarify the syrup with the egg whites. Egg white proteins coagulate when heated and trap suspended particles, which then rise or settle out. If the syrup is not heated and skimmed properly, the wine stays cloudy and may taste muddy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, capsicum, ginger, sugar, egg. 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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