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 Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Steep and strain
Add the bruised gooseberries to a quart of water and steep for four days, stirring twice daily.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Ferment
Add 3 pounds of loaf sugar and a quart of brandy (for every 20 gallons) to each gallon of the strained liquid.
Transfer the wine to a cask.
Let the wine ferment for about a week.
Keep some wine back to top up the cask before sealing it tightly.
Mature and bottle
Let the wine stand in the barrel for six months before bottling.
Wait another six months; the wine will be ready to drink.
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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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Green gooseberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and the tart acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Loaf sugar
- Supplies sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol and adds sweetness.
- Brandy
- Raises the alcohol content, which helps preserve the wine and adds warmth.
- Isinglass
- Acts as a fining agent that helps clear suspended particles from the wine.
The step that matters
Topping up the cask before sealing it. Keeping back wine to fill the cask leaves little airspace. Air exposure lets spoilage microbes and oxidation spoil the wine, so a full cask sealed tightly protects it during maturing.
“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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