Why it works: Raisin and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,642 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓
To Make the Best White Wine Vinegar From Fresh Raisins
Ingredients
Directions
Ferment the raisins
Place 3 pounds of Malagas raisins in a jar with 1 gallon of water.
Cover the jar and leave it in a warm, sunny spot from mid-April to early October.
After three months, press out the liquid.
Age and finish
Transfer the liquid to a strong iron-hooped cask.
Let it sit undisturbed for three months until it becomes excellent vinegar.
Mix 1 ounce each of cream of tartar, alum, and coarse sea salt with 1 gallon of the vinegar while boiling hot.
Pour the mixture into the cask.
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 + creamtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,642 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Malagas raisins
- Provide the sugars that ferment into the acetic acid base of the vinegar.
- Water
- Dissolves the raisin sugars and carries them through fermentation.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds tartaric acid, contributing sharpness and helping stabilize the finished vinegar.
- Alum
- Acts as a preservative and clarifier that helps settle and stabilize the vinegar.
The step that matters
Leaving the liquid undisturbed in the cask. Vinegar forms when acetic acid bacteria oxidize alcohol in the presence of air. Disturbing the liquid during aging can introduce unwanted microbes or disrupt the surface film of bacteria that drives the conversion.
“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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