Why it works: Sugar and gin work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 344 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Gooseberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Top and tail the gooseberries and bruise them thoroughly.
Pour the cold water over the gooseberries and let them stand for about 4 days, stirring frequently.
Strain the mixture through a jelly bag or fine sieve.
Make the wine
Dissolve the sugar in the liquid, then add the gin and isinglass dissolved in a little warm water.
Pour the mixture into a cask and bung loosely until fermentation has ceased.
Age
Tighten the bung and let the cask remain undisturbed for at least 6 months.
After 6 months, the wine may be bottled, but it will not be ready for use for at least 12 months.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together344 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and the juice that becomes the wine.
- Sugar
- Feeds fermentation and adds sweetness that balances the fruit's tartness.
- Gin
- Adds spirit strength and aroma, helping preserve the finished wine.
- Isinglass
- Acts as a fining agent that helps clear the wine as it settles.
The step that matters
Loose bung during fermentation. The bung must be left loose until fermentation has ceased, because active fermentation releases carbon dioxide. Sealing the cask too early can build pressure and risk bursting it or spoiling the wine.
“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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