Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Another Way to Iviake Raisin Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the must
Separate the raisins and remove the strong stalks.
Combine the raisins, loaf sugar, crude tartar, and cold spring water in a vat.
Stir the mixture well and cover the vat.
Stir twice a day for the first two weeks, then once a day.
Ferment and cask
After 3-4 weeks, when fermentation is strong and the mixture smells vinous, prepare for cask.
Place a sieve over a tub and squeeze the raisins hard to extract the liquid.
Run the liquid through a hair sieve into the cask and bottle the remainder.
Fill the cask twice a day for a week, then once a day, reducing frequency as fermentation declines.
When fermentation is complete, seal the cask and let it stand for four months.
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.
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 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
- Malaga raisins
- Provide the sugars and fruit flavour that yeast ferments into alcohol.
- Smyrna raisins
- Add more fermentable sugar and fruity body to the wine.
- Loaf sugar
- Feeds the yeast so fermentation can produce alcohol and carbonation-free body.
- Crude tartar
- Adds acidity, which keeps the wine balanced and helps stability.
The step that matters
Keeping the cask topped up. Fermenting wine gives off carbon dioxide and the liquid level drops as it settles. Refilling the cask keeps air out of the headspace, so the wine does not oxidise or sour from spoilage microbes while fermentation winds down.
“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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