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Red Currant Wine

A fermented wine made from currants, raspberries, water, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Red Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Soak currants and raspberries in water overnight.

  2. Squeeze and break them thoroughly.

  3. Rub through a fine sieve to extract juice, washing skins with some of the water.

Ferment and finish

  1. Add 4 pounds of sugar to the juice for every gallon.

  2. Bottle immediately without corking to allow fermentation.

  3. After 2-3 days, add ½ pint of brandy per gallon and cork once fermentation ceases.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Currants
Provide the main tart acidity, deep color and fruit flavor of the wine.
Raspberries
Add extra fruity aroma and flavor to the juice.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the juice and provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and adds spirit to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Bottle without corking, then cork only when fermentation ceases. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide. Sealing the bottles too early can trap gas and build pressure, so leaving them uncorked lets the gas escape until activity stops.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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