Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Mash and strain the ripe currants to obtain 1 quart of juice.
Ferment
Combine the juice, sugar, and water in a cask or jar.
Cover with mosquito netting and let it ferment for four to five weeks.
Bottle
After fermentation, drain off the liquid and bottle it tightly.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
- Currant juice
- Provides the main fruit flavour and the liquid that yeast ferments into wine.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide, and sets the wine's sweetness.
- Water
- Dilutes the juice and sugar to a balanced level for fermentation.
The step that matters
Covering the fermenting mixture with mosquito netting. The cover must let carbon dioxide escape while keeping fruit flies and other contaminants out, so the wine ferments cleanly without spoiling.
“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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