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Drink

Raspberry or Currant Wine

A fruit wine made by fermenting raspberries or currants with sugar and water, then aging for several years.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Raspberry or Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bruise the fruit and soak it in 1 quart of water for 24 hours.

  2. Strain the liquor and add 1 pound of sugar for every quart.

  3. Remove any scum that rises in 3-4 days.

  4. Transfer the liquid to a barrel.

  5. If using your own fruit, add more as it ripens, keeping track of amounts.

Make the wine

  1. Soak 5 quarts of currants and 1 pint of raspberries in 2 gallons of water overnight.

  2. Squeeze and break the fruit.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve to extract juice.

  4. Add 4 pounds of good Lisbon sugar to every gallon.

  5. Transfer the liquid to a barrel.

  6. Add a bottle of brandy for every 4 gallons after 2-3 days.

  7. Seal the barrel.

  8. Leave the peg out for a few days.

Age

  1. Let it age for 3 years for fine wine; 4 years will improve it further.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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

Currants
Provide the main fruit flavour, acidity and colour for the wine.
Raspberries
Add extra fruit aroma and flavour to the currant base.
Lisbon sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness that balances the fruit's acidity.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the wine as it ages.

The step that matters

Seal the barrel and leave the peg out. Fermentation gives off carbon dioxide, which must escape while air is kept out. A loose peg lets gas vent and stops air from souring the wine, so the barrel should be sealed once fermentation has settled.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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