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Drink

Elderberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from elderberries, sugar, egg whites, spices, raisins, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Elderberry Wine

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Elderberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pour boiling water over elderberries and let it stand for 12 hours.

  2. Draw off the liquid and boil it with sugar.

  3. Beat in egg whites while boiling to clarify.

  4. Skim the mixture clear and add ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

  5. After boiling a little longer, transfer to a tub and let it cool.

Ferment

  1. Add a toast rubbed with yeast and let it ferment for 1-2 days.

  2. Add raisins and transfer to a large jug or cask rinsed with brandy.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the colour and body of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides sweetness and alcohol.
Egg whites
Bind to particles as they cook and rise to the surface, clarifying the liquid when skimmed.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Powdered ginger root
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the wine.

The step that matters

Skim the mixture clear. Egg whites must be beaten in while boiling so they coagulate and trap impurities; skimming them off removes the haze and sediment. Leftover solids can spoil the wine or cause off-flavours during fermentation.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

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

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