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Red Currant Wine

A fermented beverage made from red currants, raspberries, sugar, beet root, tartar, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 67 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Red Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cold soft water, red currants, and raspberries in a large container.

  2. Allow the mixture to ferment and then strain it.

Finish

  1. In a separate bowl, mix raw sugar, sliced beet root, and red tartar.

  2. Add the nutmeg and brandy to the mixture.

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.

  1. Red currant + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Red currants
Provide the main fruit flavor and acidity that give the wine its character.
Raw sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides sweetness and alcohol.
Raspberries
Add fruity aroma and additional flavor to the wine.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and adds warmth to the finished wine.
Red tartar
Adds acidity and helps stabilize the wine's flavor.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to ferment and then strain it. Fermentation must be given enough time for yeast to convert sugars into alcohol. Straining too early leaves sugars unconverted and can produce a sweet, unstable wine.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, 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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