Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Made Wines
Ingredients
Directions
Make the must
Boil the water and sugar for 30 minutes, skimming well.
Pour the boiling liquid over the currants.
When nearly cold, add some barm and work it for 2 days.
Strain through a flannel or sieve.
Ferment and clear
Transfer to a barrel that holds it, adding the bruised isinglass.
Once fermentation is complete, seal for 1 month.
Bottle
Bottle the wine, adding a small lump of double-refined sugar to each bottle.
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 + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 flavour, colour and acidity that define the wine.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast so it ferments into alcohol, and sweetens the liquid.
- Barm (in the method)
- Yeast that starts the fermentation turning the sugar into alcohol.
- Isinglass
- A fining agent that gathers suspended particles so the wine clears.
The step that matters
Adding the barm when nearly cold. Yeast is killed by heat, so the must must have cooled before the barm is added. Adding it while still hot can stop fermentation before it starts.
“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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