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Wine, Currant, Red

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and beetroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 31 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Wine, Currant, Red

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Bruise the red currants with the raspberries and press out the juice.

  2. Add the remaining pulp to 11 gallons of cold water.

  3. Add the sliced beetroot and let it infuse for 12 hours, stirring frequently.

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

Ferment and store

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

  2. Allow fermentation to begin and manage it as with gooseberry wine.

  3. Once fermentation is complete, add the brandy.

  4. Let the wine stand for a week, then rack it off.

  5. Store in a cool cellar for 2 months before final racking and sealing.

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 + beetroottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  4. Beetroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Beetroot + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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 deep red colour of the wine.
Raw sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and sweetness in the finished wine.
Red tartar powder
Adds acidity, sharpening the flavour and supporting a clean fermentation.
Beetroot
Contributes extra colour and earthy body during the initial infusion.
Brandy
Added after fermentation to raise the alcohol content and preserve the wine.

The step that matters

Adding the brandy after fermentation. Brandy added too early would halt the yeast before the sugar is converted, leaving a sweeter, weaker wine. Adding it once fermentation has finished fortifies the wine and stabilises it.

Swap the beetroot

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, 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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