Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Raisin Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the raisins
Pick the raisins from the stalks and pour boiling water over them.
Add sugar and let the mixture macerate for 10 to 14 days, stirring daily.
Pour off the liquid and squeeze out the raisins.
Ferment and draw off
Add super-tartrate of potash to the liquid.
Transfer the liquid to a cask, reserving some for topping off.
When fermentation ceases, draw off the wine.
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.
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 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
- Raisins
- Provide the sugars, flavour and body that the fermented wine is built from.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
- Lisbon sugar
- Adds additional fermentable sugar to feed the yeast and sweeten the wine.
- Super-tartrate of potash
- Adds acidity and helps stabilise the wine's tartaric balance.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
The step that matters
Transfer the liquid to a cask, reserving some for topping off.. Leaving the cask full of liquid keeps air out, since air lets spoilage microbes and oxidation affect the wine. Keeping spare wine on hand lets you top off as the wine settles and loses volume.
“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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