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Drink

Gooseberry Champagne

A fermented beverage made from gooseberries, sugar, water, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gooseberry Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the tops and tails from the gooseberries.

  2. Weigh the fruit.

  3. Combine the fruit with 1 gallon of water for every 3 pounds of gooseberries in a large, clean tub.

  4. Mash the gooseberries thoroughly with a wooden pestle.

  5. Add the remaining water and stir well.

  6. Cover the tub with a cloth and let it sit for 4 days, stirring frequently.

  7. Strain the liquid through a coarse linen cloth into another vessel.

Make the wine

  1. Add 4 pounds of sugar for each gallon of liquid.

  2. Add 1 quart of brandy for every 5 gallons.

  3. Mix well.

  4. Transfer to a clean cask, filling it completely.

  5. Place the cask on its side in a cool, dry part of the cellar and loosely lay the bung on top.

  6. Secure the cask to prevent movement.

  7. Let it ferment for at least 2 weeks until bubbling stops.

Bottle and age

  1. Bottle the champagne, sealing the corks tightly, and store the bottles on their sides.

  2. After 6 months, the champagne will be ready to drink and will be as brisk as real champagne.

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 + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and acidity that form the base of the drink.
Sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness in the finished drink.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the finished drink.

The step that matters

Let it ferment until bubbling stops. Fermentation converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Bottling before it finishes can leave active sugar, so bottles may build pressure and burst.

“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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