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
Prepare the juice
Stem and mash the currants.
Strain the mashed currants and add water and sugar.
Stir well and pour into a clean cask.
Ferment and bottle
Leave the bung-hole open or cover it with a piece of lace.
Let it stand for a month to ferment before bottling.
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
- Currants
- Provide the fruit juice, acidity and flavour that the fermenting wine is built on.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Water
- Dilutes the currant juice and sugar to a drinkable volume for fermentation.
The step that matters
Leave the bung-hole open or covered with lace. Fermentation gives off carbon dioxide, which needs an outlet so the cask does not build pressure, while a cover keeps out dust and insects.
“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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