Why it works: Strawberry and currant work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 195 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Strawberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Mash the strawberries and currants.
Combine 3 quarts of strawberry juice with 3 pints of currant juice.
For every quart of the combined juices, add 1 pound of loaf sugar and 1 quart of water.
Strain the mixture and pour it into a clean, sweet cask.
Ferment and bottle
Leave uncorked until fermentation occurs.
Once fermented, bottle the wine and seal it.
Serve chilled with chopped ice.
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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Strawberry + curranttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together195 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,060 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and the food for fermentation that produces alcohol.
- Strawberry juice
- Provides the main fruit flavour, aroma and natural sugars for fermentation.
- Currant juice
- Adds tartness and acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour.
The step that matters
Leave uncorked until fermentation occurs. The cask must be left uncorked so fermentation can proceed, but the wine should be bottled and sealed only once fermentation is complete. Sealing too early can trap gas and cause bottles to burst or the wine to spoil.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (strawberry, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Pineapplefits better
- Bananafits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against strawberry, sugar. 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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