Name: Red Currant Wine
Ingredients: 10 gallons of water; 18 gallons of red currants; 1 gallon of raspberries; 20 pounds of sugar; 2 pints of brandy (optional); 1.5 pounds of sliced beetroot (optional); red tartar in fine powder (optional); hull of black currants (optional)

Why it works: Red currant and black currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 72 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Red Currant Wine

Ingredients

10 gallons of water
18 gallons of red currants
1 gallon of raspberries
20 pounds of sugar
2 pints of brandy (optional)
1.5 pounds of sliced beetroot (optional)
red tartar in fine powder (optional)
hull of black currants (optional)

Directions

Combine 10 gallons of water with 18 gallons of red currants and 1 gallon of raspberries.
Allow the mixture to ferment.
Add 20 pounds of sugar after fermentation.
If desired, add 2 pints of brandy after casking.
For color, add 1.5 pounds of sliced beetroot and red tartar powder.
Optionally, use boiled hulls of black currants as part of the water for color.

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.

Red currant + black curranttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together72 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Red currant + beetroottop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together31 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + black curranttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).
Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together105 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Brandy + black curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

Swap the beetroot

The recipe marks beetroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, sugar, brandy, black currant):

Arrowrootfits better
Beetrootthe original
Capsicumfits less well
Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar, brandy, black currant. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.