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Drink

Rich Raspberry Wine or Brandy

A fermented raspberry beverage sweetened with sugar and fortified with sherry or cognac brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,141 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rich Raspberry Wine or Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Bruise the raspberries with the back of a spoon.

  2. Strain the raspberries through a flannel bag into a stone jar.

  3. Add 1 pound of sugar for each quart of juice and stir well.

  4. Cover the jar and let it stand for three days, stirring each day.

  5. Pour off the clear liquid.

Finish and bottle

  1. Add 2 quarts of sherry or 1 quart of cognac brandy for each quart of juice.

  2. Bottle the mixture and let it sit for two weeks before serving.

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. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base of the wine.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps draw out and balance its tart fruit flavour.
Sherry or cognac brandy
Adds alcohol that preserves the mixture and gives it a warm, spirited character.

The step that matters

Stirring the sugared juice over three days. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and dissolves slowly, so daily stirring helps it dissolve evenly and keeps the juice from separating or spoiling before the spirit is added.

“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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