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 ↓
Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the must
Remove the currants from the stems and place them in an earthen vessel.
Pour 1 quart of hot water over the currants and mash them together.
Cover and let them ferment for 12 hours.
Strain and finish
Strain the mixture through linen into a cask.
Add a little yeast and let it work and settle before bottling.
In one week, the wine will be ready for use.
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.
-
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, acids and flavour that form the body of the wine.
- Muscovado sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carrying the wine's sweetness.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide as the wine works.
The step that matters
Letting the mixture ferment for 12 hours before straining. Fermentation begins as yeast on the fruit and in the air converts sugars to alcohol. Covering the vessel keeps out contaminants while the mash works, and the record gives no further detail on timing beyond 12 hours.
“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.
More currant wine recipes
You might also like
Black Currant Cordial11 recipes
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.