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Dessert

Grape Syrup

A sweet syrup made by boiling grapes, straining the juice, and mixing it with sugar water, optionally flavored with lemon or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Grape Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the grape juice

  1. Remove grapes from stems and combine with 1 pint of water in a pot.

  2. Cover and simmer over moderate heat until grapes are well boiled.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing the grapes gently.

  4. Let the juice cool, cover with a plate, and leave overnight in a wooden or earthen vessel.

Make the syrup

  1. For the syrup, combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 pint of water in a pan.

  2. Stir until sugar is partially dissolved, then heat on moderate heat, covered.

  3. Stir often until nearly boiling, skimming off any foam.

  4. Add the grape juice, cover, and heat until nearly boiling again.

  5. Remove the cover and boil for 15 minutes, skimming well.

Finish and store

  1. Pour syrup into a stone jar, adding grated lemon or cinnamon if desired.

  2. Let it sit for one day, then strain into bottles, cork, and store in a cool place.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Syrup + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together990 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Grapes
Provide the juice and main flavour of the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, when boiled, thickens it into a syrup body.

The step that matters

Boiling the grape juice with the sugar syrup. Boiling for 15 minutes after the juice is added concentrates the liquid and thickens it as water evaporates. Skimming foam keeps the syrup clear and stops impurities from spoiling it during storage.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, sugar, syrup, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, syrup, cinnamon. 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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