Name: Grape Wine
Ingredients: 3 pounds loaf sugar; 1 gallon grape juice; ½ ounce bitter almonds, cut small; water

Why it works: Grape and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry 3-methylbutanol, which smells malty, whiskey. The science ↓

Grape Wine

Ingredients

3 pounds loaf sugar
1 gallon grape juice
½ ounce bitter almonds, cut small
water

Directions

Squeeze the grapes using your hands in a fine sieve to avoid crushing the stones.
Soak the pulp in water until you have enough to fill the cask.
Dissolve 3 pounds of sugar in boiling water, then let it cool.
Add the cooled sugar solution to the cask with the grape juice.
Fill the cask with the water used to soak the pulp.
Add ½ ounce of small-cut bitter almonds for each gallon of wine.
Allow fermentation to occur, then proceed with brandy and papering as needed.

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.

Grape + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,490 recipes

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