Name: Native Grape Wine
Ingredients: perfect grapes; 1 quart boiling water for every bushel of grapes; 3 pounds sugar for every gallon of juice

Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Native Grape Wine

Ingredients

perfect grapes
1 quart boiling water for every bushel of grapes
3 pounds sugar for every gallon of juice

Directions

Prepare

Pick and wash the grapes, then pack them in a wooden or stone vessel.
Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the grapes for every bushel.
Cover with a cloth and let it stand for 7 to 10 days.

Ferment and age

Strain the mixture and add 3 pounds of sugar for every gallon of juice, mixing well.
Transfer to demijohns and cover the tops with cloth.
Let it stand for 6 months, then cork tightly.
The wine will be ready to use in 9 months.

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.

Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,490 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes: Provide the juice, flavour and natural yeast that turn the sugar into alcohol.
Sugar: Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity.

“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.