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Gooseberry Champagne

A fermented beverage made from gooseberries, water, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gooseberry Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the tops and tails from the gooseberries.

  2. Weigh the gooseberries and pour a little water over them in a large tub.

  3. Mash the gooseberries thoroughly with a wooden beetle, then add the remaining water and stir well.

  4. Cover the tub with a cloth and let it sit for four days, stirring frequently.

  5. Strain the liquid through a coarse linen cloth into another vessel.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add 4 pounds of sugar and 1 quart of brandy for every gallon of liquid, mixing well.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a clean cask, filling it completely, and place it on its side in a cool, dry cellar.

  3. Loosely lay the bung on top and secure the cask to prevent movement.

  4. Let it ferment for at least two weeks until the hissing stops.

  5. Bottle the champagne, driving the corks in tightly, and lay the bottles on their sides.

  6. It will be ready to drink in six 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.

  1. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and the juice that becomes the base of the wine.
Fine loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing the sparkle and alcohol.
French brandy
Adds alcohol that strengthens the drink and helps preserve it.
Soft water
Dilutes the fruit juice to a drinkable volume for fermentation.

The step that matters

Driving the corks in tightly. Fermentation gas builds pressure in sealed bottles. A loose cork can pop out or let the carbonation escape, so corks must be driven in firmly and the bottles laid on their sides.

“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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