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Black Currant Vinegar

A homemade vinegar made by fermenting black currants with sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Black Currant Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the currants and pour the vinegar over them.

  2. Add a little sugar to draw out the juice.

Steep

  1. Let it stand for 3 to 4 days, stirring well each day.

  2. Strain the juice from the fruit.

Cook and bottle

  1. Combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 pint of juice in a pot.

  2. Boil gently for 45 minutes, skimming as needed.

  3. Once cold, bottle the mixture.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Black currant + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Supply the main fruit flavor and natural pectin-rich juice for the syrup.
Vinegar
Extracts flavor from the fruit and adds the sharp acidity that defines the finished drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, balances the acidity, and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 45 minutes, skimming as needed. A gentle simmer reduces the liquid slowly without scorching the sugar or driving off the bright fruit aroma. Skimming removes foam and impurities, leaving a clearer, cleaner-tasting final mixture.

Swap the black currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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