Name: Currant Champagne
Ingredients: 150 pounds currants; 75 pounds refined crushed sugar; 3 pints white brandy; sufficient pure soft water

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 ↓

Currant Champagne

Ingredients

150 pounds currants
75 pounds refined crushed sugar
3 pints white brandy
sufficient pure soft water

Directions

Prepare the juice

Gather currants in dry weather when ripe.
Mash the currants to break every berry without bruising the stems.
Add a portion of the water and stir well.
Strain the mixture over a grain sieve, gently rubbing and pressing with your hands.
Combine the sugar and brandy in a tub, then strain the liquor onto the sugar.

Ferment and bottle

Once the sugar is dissolved, strain the mixture through a fine cloth into a strong, sweet cask, filling it to within 2 gallons of the top.
Seal the cask tightly to allow fermentation.
Bottle the wine as soon as it is perfectly clear for maximum briskness.
Allow the wine to air briefly to enhance fermentation and reduce sweetness.

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.

Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 flavour and acidity that give the wine its character.
Refined crushed sugar: Sweetens the wine and feeds the yeast during fermentation.
White brandy: Adds alcohol and strength, helping preserve the finished wine.