Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Red Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Make the must
Pour 4 gallons of water over 28 lb of moist sugar and stir the mixture well.
Squeeze the currants to extract juice, using a sieve and a coarse cloth, and mix the juice with the sugar and water mixture.
Pour everything into a nine-gallon cask.
Ferment and age
Fill the cask with water if needed, and fill it with water daily while the wine ferments.
Bung the cask tightly when fermentation stops.
After a month or six weeks, add 1 pint of brandy for every 5 gallons of wine.
Let it stand until March.
Bottle it.
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.
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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Currant + winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,323 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
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
- Moist sugar
- Provides the fermentable sugar that yeast converts into alcohol, and sweetness in the finished wine.
- Currants
- Supply the juice that gives the wine its fruit flavour and acidity.
- Brandy
- Added later to raise the alcohol content and fortify the wine.
The step that matters
Bung the cask tightly when fermentation stops. Once fermentation ends, air exposure lets the wine oxidise and spoil, so a tight seal protects its flavour while it ages.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, wine):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Applefits about as well
- 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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