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Drink

English Claret

A fermented beverage made from water, cider, raisins, barberries, raspberry and blackberry juices, mustard seed, and dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and blackberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 278 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

English Claret

Ingredients

Directions

Ferment

  1. Combine water, cider, and bruised raisins in a large container.

  2. Cover and let it sit in a warm place for two weeks, stirring every other day.

Flavor and rest

  1. Strain the liquid into a clean cask.

  2. Add barberries, raspberry juice, and blackberry juice to the cask.

  3. Mix in a little mustard seed and cover with dough.

  4. Let it sit by the fire for three to four days.

  5. Allow it to stand for a week before bottling.

  6. Once it matures, it will resemble common claret.

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. Raspberry + blackberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together278 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Cider + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Cider + blackberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cider + raspberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + mustardtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Malaga raisins
Provide sugar and fruit flavor that ferment into the wine's body.
Cider
Adds fermentable sugars and apple flavor to the base liquid.
Raspberry juice
Adds fruity aroma and color with a tart edge.
Blackberry juice
Adds deep color and fruity sweetness to the claret.
Barberries
Contribute tartness and acidity that balance the sweetness.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, raspberry, blackberry, mustard):

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, raspberry, blackberry, mustard. 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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