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Unfermented Wines

A simple method to produce non-fermented wine by boiling grape juice with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Unfermented Wines

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Press the juice from grapes, blackberries, or raspberries without mashing the seeds.

  2. Add 1 pint of water and ½ lb of sugar for each pint of juice.

Boil and bottle

  1. Boil for a few minutes, skimming any sediment or scum that rises.

  2. Bottle while hot, cork tightly, cut off the corks, and dip the tops in wax.

  3. Store in a dry, cool place.

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. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grape juice
Provides the main liquid and fruit flavour of the wine.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the juice, balancing its tartness.
Water
Dilutes the juice and sugar to a drinkable volume.

The step that matters

Bottle while hot and seal tightly. Boiling and hot bottling help drive out microbes and keep the liquid stable, while tight corks and wax seal out air. Without a proper seal, the juice can re-ferment or spoil in storage.

“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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