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Cherry Wine

A preserved cherry wine made with brandy, rum, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cherry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Stone the cherries and place them in a large jar.

  2. Put the jar in a saucepan of boiling water and cook gently until all the juice is extracted.

  3. Strain the juice into a preserving pan.

Make the wine

  1. Add sugar and the ground spices.

  2. Boil and skim until clear.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Add the brandy and rum.

  5. Pour into bottles.

  6. Cork them tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe cherries
Provide the fruit juice that forms the base of the wine.
Brandy
Adds alcohol strength and warmth to the finished wine.
Rum
Adds alcohol strength and a deeper, rounded flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the wine, balancing the tartness of the cherry juice.

The step that matters

Boil and skim until clear. Boiling sets off the impurities and proteins that rise as scum, and skimming removes them. Skipping this leaves the wine cloudy and less stable in the bottle.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, brandy, rum, sugar. 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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