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Raisin Wine with Cider

A wine made by steeping raisins in cider and adding brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Raisin Wine with Cider

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the raisins in a cask.

  2. Pour the cider over the raisins and stir well for 2-3 days.

  3. Stop the cask and let it stand for 6 months.

  4. Rack the wine into another cask that it will fill.

  5. Add the gallon of brandy.

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. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + cidertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together588 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Malaga raisins
Provide the sugar, flavour and body that the wine is built from.
Cider
Dissolves sugars and flavours from the raisins and supplies the liquid base for fermentation.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps preserve the wine.

The step that matters

Stop the cask and let it stand for 6 months. The cask must be sealed so fermentation proceeds slowly without air exposure, which would let the wine spoil or turn sour. Waiting allows the flavours to mellow and clarify over time.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Currantfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, 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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