Why it works: Currant and rum work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 155 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Mash and squeeze the currants through a coarse cloth.
To the gallon of juice, add the quart of water and the sugar; stir well.
Ferment and finish
Let the mixture sit in a large stone pot for two weeks.
After two weeks, remove the thick scum from the surface.
Add the pint of rum or brandy, then transfer to a demijohn and seal 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 + rumtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together155 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,908 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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, acidity and the sugars that ferment into alcohol.
- Loaf sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
- Rum or brandy
- Added at the end to raise the alcohol content and help preserve the wine.
The step that matters
Removing the scum after two weeks. The thick scum on the surface is made of yeast, pulp and other debris from fermentation. Skimming it off before sealing keeps off-flavours and spoilage out of the wine.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rum):
- Vanillafits better
- Pineapplefits better
- Bananafits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum. 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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