Skip to main content
Drink

Mr. CarnelVs Receipt for Making Red Currant Wine

A fermented beverage made from red currants, raspberries, beet root, sugar, tartar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Red currant and brandy work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 105 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Mr. CarnelVs Receipt for Making Red Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Bruise the red currants with the raspberries.

  2. Press out the juice and add the cold water to the remaining pulp.

  3. Add the sliced beet root and let it infuse for 12 hours, mixing frequently.

  4. Press out the liquor again and combine it with the juice.

Ferment

  1. Dissolve the raw sugar and red tartar in the mixed liquor.

  2. Manage the fermentation as previously instructed for gooseberry wine.

  3. Once fermentation is complete, add the brandy.

Age and store

  1. Let the wine stand for a week, then rack it off and let it sit for two months.

  2. Finally, rack it off again, seal it in a cask, and store in a cool cellar for aging.

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  3. 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 currants
Provide the main fruit flavour, acidity and colour for the wine.
Raw sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness and alcohol level.
Red tartar
Adds acidity, giving the wine a tart, bright balance.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to raise the alcohol content and help preserve the wine.

The step that matters

Add the brandy only after fermentation is complete. Adding spirit too early stops the yeast before it has converted the sugar, leaving the wine sweeter and less stable than intended.

Swap the red currant

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

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

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.

You might also like

Black Currant CordialBlack Currant Cordial11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes