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Drink

To Make Currant JVine

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

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 ↓

To Make Currant JVine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Gather ripe currants on a dry day and strip them from the stems.

  2. Bruise the currants in a large pan with a wooden pestle.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours to ferment.

  4. Strain the liquid through a hair sieve without touching it.

  5. Add 2.5 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid and stir well.

  6. Pour the mixture into a vessel.

Age and bottle

  1. For every 6 gallons, add 1 quart of brandy and let it stand for 6 weeks.

  2. If the wine is clear, bottle it.

  3. If the wine is not clear, transfer it to another vessel and bottle it in small bottles after 2 weeks.

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 juice, flavour and natural acidity that form the wine's base.
White sugar
Feeds the fermentation and adds sweetness to balance the wine's tartness.
Brandy
Fortifies the wine, raising its alcohol level and helping it keep.

The step that matters

Strain without touching the sediment. Pressing or disturbing the pulp pushes solids and cloudiness into the liquid. Letting the juice drain on its own keeps the wine clearer and less likely to spoil later.

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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