Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Another Way to Make Raisin Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the must
Separate the raisins and remove strong stalks.
Combine raisins, sugar, tartar, and water in a vat. Stir well.
Cover the vat.
Ferment
Stir twice a day for the first two weeks, then once a day.
When fermentation is strong (3-4 weeks), prepare for cask.
Draw off and age
Squeeze raisins in a sieve over a tub to extract liquor.
Run the liquor through a hair sieve into the cask.
Fill bottles with the remainder.
Fill the cask twice a day for a week, then once a day as fermentation declines.
When fermentation is complete, seal the cask.
Let it stand for four months.
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 + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 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
- Malaga raisins
- Provide the bulk of the sugars and flavour that ferment into the wine.
- Smyrna raisins
- Add additional sugar and fruit flavour to the fermenting must.
- Loaf sugar
- Supplies extra sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol.
- Crude tartar
- Adds acidity that supports a clean fermentation and balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Stirring during the first weeks of fermentation. Regular stirring keeps the raisin solids mixed with the liquid, so sugars and flavours are extracted evenly and the yeast has fresh access to sugar. Neglecting it can leave the must uneven and slow fermentation.
“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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