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Currant Champagne

A fermented beverage made from white and red currants, sugar, isinglass, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Currant Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine the white and red currants in a large container with the cold water.

  2. Bruise and stir the mixture daily for six days.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag.

Ferment

  1. Add the loaf sugar to every gallon of liquid.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in a little water and add it to the mixture along with the fresh yeast.

  3. Leave the wine for two to three days.

  4. Transfer the wine into a cask and seal it once fermentation is complete.

Age

  1. Let it age for six to eight 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. White currant + red curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White currants
Provide juice and mild, sweet-tart flavour to the wine.
Red currants
Add colour, body and tartness to the juice.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to balance the acidity.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps clarify the wine by collecting suspended particles.
Fresh yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.

The step that matters

Sealing the cask after fermentation. Sealing too early can trap carbon dioxide and cause pressure, while sealing too late exposes the wine to air, which can spoil its flavour. Timing the seal to the end of fermentation keeps the wine stable as it ages.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. 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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