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Mulled Ale

A warm alcoholic beverage made by heating ale with sugar, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mulled Ale

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Ale

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In an ale warmer or saucepan, combine the ale, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Heat the mixture until it's nearly boiling.

  3. Stir in the rum or brandy and additional sugar or flavoring if desired.

  4. Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Rum + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Ale
Forms the liquid base and carries the spices, giving the drink its body.
Rum or brandy
Adds warmth and aroma, and its alcohol carries the spice flavours.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the ale.
Ground cloves
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma to the spiced drink.
Grated nutmeg
Contributes a warm, sweet aroma to the spiced drink.
Ground ginger
Contributes a sharp, warming aroma to the spiced drink.

The step that matters

Heat until nearly boiling. Heating gently extracts the spice flavours into the liquid. Boiling vigorously drives off the alcohol from the rum or brandy and can make the ale taste harsh, so the mixture should be kept just below a boil.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rum, sugar, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, sugar, clove, 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.

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