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To Make Red Currant Wine

A fermented beverage made from red currant juice, water, yeast, sugar, isinglass, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

To Make Red Currant Wine

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Gather the currants when fully ripe, strip them from the stems, and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Combine 1 gallon of juice with 2 gallons of cold water and 2 tablespoons of yeast; let it work for 2 days.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and age

  1. Soak 1 ounce of isinglass in cider.

  2. Add 3 pounds of loaf sugar to the strained mixture and stir well.

  3. Transfer to a good cask and add 2 quarts of brandy for every 10 gallons of wine; mix thoroughly.

  4. Seal the cask and let it stand for 4 months before bottling.

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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  2. Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Red currant + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Red currant juice
Provides the main flavour, acidity and colour of the wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Loaf sugar
Supplies the sugar that yeast converts, and sweetens the finished wine.
Isinglass
Fines the wine, helping it clear by collecting suspended particles for removal.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content, stabilising the wine and preserving it during ageing.

The step that matters

Adding the brandy. Brandy raises the alcohol level, which halts fermentation and helps keep the wine stable during ageing. Mixing it in thoroughly ensures even protection throughout the cask.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, wine. 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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