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Wine, Damson

A fortified wine made from damson prunes, sugar, yeast, and brandy, aged for years.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,340 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Wine, Damson

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil 10½ gallons of filtered river water with 32 pounds of sugar for 30 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture well.

  3. Add 32 quarts of stoned damsons.

  4. Boil for another 30 minutes.

  5. Skim the mixture.

  6. Stir until the liquid is bright.

  7. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a cooler.

  8. Add fresh yeast.

  9. Let the mixture sit for 3-4 days.

Rack and fortify

  1. Draw off the sediment.

  2. Transfer the liquid to a cask.

  3. Filter the lees.

  4. Add 1 quart of French brandy.

  5. Seal the cask with paper over the bung.

  6. Let the wine stand for 6 months.

  7. Rack it off.

  8. Filter the lees through flannel.

  9. Fill the cask again.

  10. Add 1 ounce of dissolved isinglass mixed with 2 quarts of the wine.

  11. Secure the bung.

  12. Let it age for 2 years before bottling and sealing the corks.

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. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Provides the sweetness and the fermentable sugar that yeast turns into alcohol.
Damsons
Supply the fruit flavour, acidity and tannin that give the wine its character.
Yeast (in the method)
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during the sit period.
French brandy
Adds alcohol that stabilises the wine and helps preserve it during ageing.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps clear the wine by drawing suspended particles out of it.

The step that matters

Straining and fining before ageing. Removing solids and clearing the liquid before the long rest keeps the wine from refermenting or turning cloudy. Isinglass works by binding haze particles so they settle out, so it should be added to a clean, racked 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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