Why it works: Sugar and white currant work together. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 59 recipes. The science ↓
White Currant Wine, Called English Champaign
Ingredients
Directions
Boil 6 gallons of water with 18 pounds of sugar for 30 minutes, skimming off the scum as it rises.
Pour the boiling mixture over 2 gallons of picked white currants.
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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Sugar + white curranttop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together59 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body that gives the finished wine its fullness, and feeds the fermentation.
- White currants
- Supply the fruit flavour, acidity and the natural sugars and yeasts that start fermentation.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar and makes up the bulk of the liquid that will ferment into wine.
The step that matters
Skimming the boiling syrup. Scum rising during the 30-minute boil is made of impurities and proteins; removing it as it forms keeps the wine clearer and reduces off-flavours.
“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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