Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Gather currants on a fine dry day when fully ripe.
Strip the currants.
Place them in a large pan.
Bruise the currants with a wooden pestle.
Let the mixture stand for 24 hours to ferment.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve without touching it.
Sweeten and age
For every gallon of liquid, add 2.5 pounds of white sugar.
Stir well.
Transfer the mixture to a vessel.
For every 6 gallons, add 1 quart of brandy.
Let it stand for 6 weeks.
If the wine is clear, bottle it.
If not, transfer it to another vessel, leaving sediment behind.
Bottle the wine after another fortnight.
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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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Currants
- Provide the fruit juice that ferments into the wine's base flavor.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the wine and feeds the fermentation that produces alcohol.
- Brandy
- Raises the alcohol content and helps keep the finished wine stable.
The step that matters
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve without touching it.. Pressing or disturbing the pulp pushes solids into the liquid, adding cloudiness and sediment that can affect clarity and flavor in the finished wine.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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