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Drink

Apple Wine

Apple wine is made by fermenting apple juice with sugar, yeast, and spirits, then clarified with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and spirit work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 31 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Apple Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Add 2 lbs of sugar to 1 gallon of apple juice immediately after pressing.

  2. Boil until scum rises, then strain through a sieve and let cool.

Ferment

  1. Add good yeast and stir well.

  2. Let it ferment in a tub for 2-3 weeks, or until the head flattens.

  3. Skim off the head, draw it clear, and turn it.

Age and finish

  1. After one year, rack it off and fine it with isinglass.

  2. Add ½ pint of rectified spirits of wine or 1 pint of French brandy for every 8 gallons.

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. Apple + spirittop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apple juice
Provides the base liquid and fruit flavour that the yeast ferments.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, and the alcohol it produces gives the wine its body.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Isinglass
Acts as a fining agent that helps settle haze so the wine clears.

The step that matters

Let it ferment until the head flattens. Yeast turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide while it is active. Once the foam settles, most of the fermentation is done, so the wine can be cleared and aged without continuing to work.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, spirit):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, spirit. 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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