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Black Currant Wine

A fermented black currant wine made with currant juice, water, sugar, and brandy.

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

Black Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine equal quantities of currant juice and water in a cask.

  2. Add 3.5 pounds of sugar to the mixture.

Ferment and age

  1. Place the cask in a warm spot to ferment.

  2. Once fermentation is complete, remove the refuse.

  3. Keep the cask filled with juice and add 1 quart of brandy for every 6 gallons.

  4. Seal the cask for 8 to 9 months.

  5. Bottle the wine, but wait at least 12 months before using.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness and alcohol level.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the wine as it ages.
Currant juice
Provides the fruit flavour, colour and the base that ferments into wine.

The step that matters

Keep the cask filled with juice. Headspace lets air contact the wine, which encourages spoilage and oxidation. Topping up keeps the wine full and protected while it ages.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. 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.

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