Name: Mixed Wine
Ingredients: equal quantities of white currants; equal quantities of red currants; equal quantities of black currants; equal quantities of cherries; equal quantities of raspberries; 6 pounds of moist sugar; 6 quarts of water; a little brandy

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 ↓

Mixed Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

Mesh the currants, cherries, and raspberries together.
Strain the juice.

Make the sugar water

Boil 6 pounds of sugar in 6 quarts of water.
Skim off any foam.

Ferment and age

Mix the cold sugar water with the fruit juice.
Transfer the mixture into a barrel that can hold it all.
Place the bung loosely.
Let the mixture sit for 10 days.
Seal the barrel.
Let the barrel stand for 4 months.
Add a little brandy to the mixture.

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).
White currant + red curranttop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together105 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Black currant + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

White currants: Provide the fruit juice that gives the wine its base flavor and acidity.
Red currants: Add tartness and fruit flavor to the blended juice.
Black currants: Add deep fruit flavor and acidity to the blended juice.
Cherries: Contribute fruit sweetness and body to the blended juice.
Raspberries: Add aroma and fruity flavor to the blended juice.
Moist sugar: Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, black currant, sugar, brandy):

Raspberryfits better
Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, black currant, sugar, brandy. 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.