Skip to main content
Drink

Blackberry Wine. No. 2

A fermented blackberry wine made by macerating berries, clarifying with isinglass, and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Wine. No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Place blackberries in a large wood or stone vessel with a tap.

  2. Pour enough boiling water to cover the berries.

  3. When cool enough to touch, bruise the berries until broken.

  4. Cover and let stand for 3 to 4 days until berries rise to the top.

  5. Draw off the clear juice into another vessel.

Sweeten and clarify

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for every 10 quarts of juice and stir thoroughly.

  2. Let stand for 6 to 10 days in the first vessel, covered.

  3. Draw off through a jelly bag.

  4. Soak 4 ounces of isinglass in 1 pint of wine for 12 hours.

  5. Boil the isinglass mixture over low heat until dissolved.

  6. Combine the dissolved isinglass with 1 gallon of blackberry juice and bring to a boil.

Ferment and store

  1. Pour everything back into the vessel and let stand a few days to ferment and settle.

  2. Draw off and store in a cool place.

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 + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 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

Blackberries
Provide the juice and flavour that form the base of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness in the finished wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps clear the wine as it settles.

“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.

You might also like

Wine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipesElderberry WineElderberry Wine51 recipes