Why it works: Raisin and sage work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Sage Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the must
Boil the spring water for 15 minutes until blood-warm.
Add the raisins, red sage, and ale yeast to the water.
Stir the mixture well.
Cover the mixture in a warm place for 6-7 days, stirring once daily.
Strain the mixture.
Ferment and bottle
Transfer it to a cask.
Allow it to ferment for 3-4 days.
Seal the cask.
After 6-7 days, add 1-2 quarts of Malaga sack.
When the wine is clear, bottle it.
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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Raisin + sagetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Malaga raisins
- Provide sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol, and body and flavor to the wine.
- Ale yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the liquid into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Red sage
- Contributes aromatic and herbal flavor to the wine.
- Malaga sack
- Adds sweet, fortified wine character to the finished wine.
The step that matters
Keeping the water blood-warm before adding yeast. Yeast works best within a moderate temperature range. Water that is too hot can kill yeast cells, while water that is too cool slows fermentation and invites spoilage.
“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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