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Drink

Blackberry Wine

A fermented blackberry beverage made with water, sugar, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Blackberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Bruise the blackberries in a large container.

  2. Pour the hot water over the berries and let them stand for 2 to 3 days, stirring occasionally.

  3. Strain off the liquid.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add 2.25 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid.

  2. Let the mixture stand and ferment.

  3. Before bottling, add ½ gallon of brandy if desired.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Blackberries
Provide the fruit flavour, colour and the juice that becomes the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, which produces the alcohol.
Brandy
Optionally raises the alcohol content and adds a warm, spirited note.

The step that matters

Add 2.25 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid. Yeast converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Sugar added at the set rate per gallon gives a balanced sweetness and alcohol level rather than a harsh or overly sweet wine.

“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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