Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Extract and mix
Press the currants in a fruit press to extract the juice.
Add 1 quart of water and 3 pounds of damp brown sugar to the juice.
Ferment
Ferment in tubs, skimming every day until fermentation is complete.
Transfer to a barrel and loosely fit the bung until fermentation is done, then drive it in tightly.
Bottle
It will be ready to bottle in January.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
- Currant juice
- Carries the fruit flavour and acidity that the wine is built on.
- Damp brown sugar
- Feeds the yeast, which converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and adds sweetness and depth.
The step that matters
Fitting the bung. A loosely fitted bung lets carbon dioxide escape while fermentation is active. Sealing it tightly too early can trap gas and build pressure before fermentation has finished.
“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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