Retro review: Wincarnis, once a meat wine

Wincarnis | England | LCBO Code #24984 | $10.40 | 18% alc. | 750 ml | 134 g/L residual sugar

It seems that this wine has been at the LCBO since before I was legally eligible to drink. I thought it might be a bit of fun to reintroduce this product in people’s imaginations and perhaps spur our readers to experiment with a variety of cocktails.

As the name suggests, this is wine that was once made with meat. It was concocted in 1881 as a health-giving tonic and was originally named Coleman's Liebig's Extract of Meat and Malt Wine. Presumably the iron in beef gave it stamina powers.

It’s incredibly popular in places like Malaysia, Dubai and particularly Jamaica where it’s consumed mixed with milk and stout beer. I’m guessing this is a variation on the Jamaican Stout Punch, which I admit does look delicious.

Today this sweet aperitif wine is made with a blend of grapes, malt extract and a broad range of herbs such as gentian root, mugwort, angelica root, mint, fennel seed, coriander seed, peppermint leaf, cardamom seed, and cassia bark.

It’s a fairly simple straightforward beverage, not as complex as either a medium sweet sherry or a red vermouth but you can certainly use it as a substitute for both. The dominant flavours are caramel with a hint of marmalade coming through from all the bittering herbs.

When I first tried it the other day I immediately thought of mixing it with brown spirits such as rye or bourbon and the more I thought about it, the more it became apparent that this would make a good Manhattan cocktail.

I used a nine-year-old Knob Creek Single Barrel Reserve bourbon in my version as well as Angostura Orange Bitters. It worked but I would suggest using a more everyday bourbon for this. The reserve aging on the Knob Creek in this cocktail demonstrated a little too much barrel for my liking. You may even want to go with a well made rye such as Canadian Club 12 year.

All in all, this trip down memory lane was worth taking and for the money, I liked the Wincarnis more than I thought I would.

As of this writing there are 80 bottles in the Ottawa area.