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Drink

Blackberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from ripe blackberries, sugar, isinglass, wine, and blackberry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Place ripe blackberries in a large vessel and cover with boiling water.

  2. Once cool enough to touch, bruise the berries until broken.

  3. Cover and let stand for 3‑4 days until berries rise to the top.

  4. Draw off the clear liquid into another vessel and add 1 pound of sugar.

  5. Stir well and let it work for 7‑10 days in a similar vessel.

  6. Strain through a jelly bag into a large vessel.

Fine and store

  1. Soak 4 ounces of isinglass in 1 pint of white wine for 12 hours.

  2. Boil the isinglass until dissolved, then mix with 1 gallon of blackberry juice.

  3. Bring to a boil, then pour into the vessel.

  4. Let it stand for a few days to settle, then draw off and store in a cool place.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

  2. Blackberry + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. White wine + blackberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + blackberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and the juice that becomes the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps settle suspended particles so the wine clears.
White wine
Carries the isinglass so it can be dispersed evenly into the juice.

The step that matters

Adding the isinglass. Isinglass must be fully dissolved before it is mixed in. Undissolved pieces will not disperse evenly and can leave specks or fail to clear the wine properly.

Swap the blackberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, white wine, brandy):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, white wine, 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.

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