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Wine, Currant

A fermented wine made from ripe currants, water, brown sugar, and French brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine, Currant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the currants well with your hands.

  2. Add the water to the mashed currants.

  3. Strain the mixture through a strong muslin cloth or hair sifter.

  4. Add the brown sugar to the strained liquid.

Ferment

  1. Transfer to a clean cask or demijohn and lightly cork it.

  2. Place it in a moderately warm location to ferment.

  3. Once fermentation is complete, tighten the cork or bung.

Finish and bottle

  1. In late October or early November, carefully pour off the wine.

  2. For every five gallons of wine, add one quart of French brandy.

  3. Bottle the wine, cork, seal, and store in a dry cellar.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Currants
Provide the fruit juice, flavour and natural acidity that define the wine.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and some sweetness.
French brandy
Added at racking to fortify the wine, raising its alcohol content and preserving it.

The step that matters

Leaving the cork loose during fermentation. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide, which needs an escape route. A tightly sealed vessel can build pressure or burst, so the cork is only lightly set until fermentation finishes.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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