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Elderberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from raisins, water, and elderberry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Elderberry Wine

Why it works: Raisin and elderberry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Elderberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hash the raisins slightly.

  2. Boil the water for 30 minutes.

  3. Let the boiled water cool to lukewarm.

Steep and strain

  1. Steep the raisins in the water for 10 days, stirring twice daily.

  2. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Mix the elderberry juice with the strained liquid, then stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a cask.

  3. Let it sit in a warm place until fermentation is complete.

  4. Seal the cask tightly.

  5. Bottle the wine in February.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + elderberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10 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
Supply sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol, giving the wine its body.
Elderberry juice
Adds fruity flavour, colour and aroma to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Let fermentation finish before sealing and bottling. Yeast turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Sealing or bottling before fermentation is complete can trap gas, which may build pressure and burst containers, and it can leave the wine tasting unfinished.

“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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