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Blackberry Wine

A fermented blackberry beverage made by steeping berries in boiling water, adding sugar, and clarifying with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pour boiling water over the blackberries and let cool.

  2. Bruise the fruit and let it sit until the berries rise to the top.

  3. Drain off the clear liquid and measure it.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Add 2 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid and stir well.

  2. Let it stand uncovered for 7 to 10 days.

  3. Draw off the wine and strain it through a jelly bag.

  4. Dissolve ½ ounce of isinglass in a little of the wine for every 3 gallons and mix it through.

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. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blackberries
Provide the fruit flavour, colour and natural sugars that ferment into wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that binds haze particles so they settle, clearing the wine.

The step that matters

Drawing off and straining the wine. Pouring off the wine too early or without straining leaves sediment and haze in it. Letting the fermented liquid settle and then straining it through a jelly bag gives a clearer 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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