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Pure Wine

A fermented raisin wine made by steeping raisins in water, coloring with burnt sugar, and optionally adding brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,768 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pure Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each raisin into two or three pieces.

  2. Place the raisins in a large jug with the water.

Ferment

  1. Let the mixture stand uncorked for two weeks, shaking occasionally in a warm place.

  2. Strain the mixture through several layers of wool or a filter.

Finish and bottle

  1. Color the wine with burnt sugar.

  2. For a stronger flavor, add 1 pint of brandy before bottling.

  3. Bottle and cork the wine well for storage.

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. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. 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

Raisins
Provide the sugars and fruit flavor that ferment into the wine.
Pure soft water
Dissolves the raisin sugars and forms the bulk of the liquid.
Burnt sugar
Adds a deep brown color to the finished wine.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and adds a stronger flavor.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand uncorked. Yeast on the raisins and in the air ferments the sugars, producing carbon dioxide. Leaving the jug uncorked lets that gas escape so the jug does not build pressure, while a warm spot keeps fermentation active.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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