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Cherry Wine

A sweetened, spiced cherry wine flavored with brandy and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cherry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Stone the cherries and place them in a large jar.

  2. Put the jar in a saucepan of boiling water and cook gently until all the juice is extracted.

  3. Strain the juice into a preserving pan.

Make the wine

  1. Add sugar and the spices, then boil and skim until clear.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Add the brandy and rum.

  4. Pour into bottles, cork them tightly, and use as needed.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 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

Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base of the wine.
Brandy
Adds alcohol and warmth, helping preserve the wine and deepen its flavour.
Rum
Adds alcohol and a rounder, sweeter aroma to the finished wine.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice to taste, balancing the tartness of the cherries.

The step that matters

Boil and skim until clear. Boiling sugar and spices with the juice dissolves the sugar fully and coagulates particles that rise as scum. Skimming removes them, so the wine settles clear instead of cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, brandy, rum, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, brandy, rum, sugar. 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.

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