Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Raspberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Bruise the raspberries and let them stand in water for two days.
Strain the liquid and add 3 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid.
Dissolve the sugar and transfer the liquid to a barrel.
Age and bottle
After about two months, when the wine is clear, bottle it.
Add 1 tablespoon of brandy or 1 glass of wine to each bottle.
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.
-
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Raspberries
- Provide the flavour and aroma of the wine, and the fruit sugars that ferment into alcohol.
- Sugar
- Feeds the fermentation that turns the juice into wine and adds sweetness to the finished drink.
- Brandy or wine
- Added to each bottle to boost the alcohol content and help preserve the finished wine.
The step that matters
Waiting until the wine is clear before bottling. Bottling too early traps yeast and suspended particles in the liquid, which can keep fermenting in the bottle and cause cloudiness, sediment or pressure buildup. Letting the wine settle first gives a stable, clear result.
“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.
You might also like
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipes
Blackberry Cordial129 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.