Name: Mulled Wine
Ingredients: 1 cup water; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ginger; 1 teaspoon cloves; 1 bottle red wine; ½ cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; 2 strips orange rind

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the water with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves until the flavor is extracted.
Add the red wine, sugar, and nutmeg to the mixture.
Stir in the orange rind strips for added flavor.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Red wine: Forms the liquid base and supplies most of the drink's body and flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity and tannins.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma from its essential oils.
Cloves: Contributes strong, warm aroma and a pungent spice note.
Ginger: Adds a bright, peppery warmth to the spiced flavor.
Orange rind: Adds citrus aroma and fresh, bright flavor from its oils.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, clove, red wine, sugar, nutmeg):

Orangethe original
Pearfits about as well
Quincefits about as well
Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, ginger, clove, red wine, sugar, nutmeg. 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.