Why it works: Raisin and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,768 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Raisin Wine Without Cider
Ingredients
Directions
Make the wine
Pour the spring water over the raisins and stir well daily for 14 days.
Squeeze the raisins in a horse-hair bag using a press to extract the liquid.
Transfer the liquid to a cask and seal it when it stops hissing.
Age and bottle
After 6 months, rack the wine into another cask or barrel, adding toast and yeast.
When it stops hissing again, add 1 quart of brandy for every 8 gallons of wine and seal it.
Bottle the wine in the spring or at Christmas, keeping it in a warm place to ferment.
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 + brandytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,768 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
- Malagas raisins
- Provide the sugar and flavour that the fermentation turns into wine.
- Spring water
- Dissolves sugars from the raisins and carries them into the liquid for fermentation.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
- Brandy
- Raises the alcohol content, helping preserve the wine and stabilise it.
- Toast
- Adds a toasted aroma and helps clarify the wine as it ages.
The step that matters
Sealing the cask after the hissing stops. Hissing means fermentation is still releasing carbon dioxide. Sealing too early can trap pressure, while waiting until the bubbling has settled lets the wine age cleanly without spoiling.
“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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