Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Clary Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liquor
Boil 15 gallons of water with 45 lbs. of sugar and skim it.
When cool, mix a little of the water with ½ pint of yeast, gradually adding more water.
After an hour, pour the yeast mixture into the large pot.
Ferment
Add the clary flowers to the liquor, using 12 quarts.
When bubbling stops and all flowers are added, let it sit for 4 months.
Rack and bottle
Rack off the liquid, discard the dregs, and add 1 gallon of brandy.
Seal the container and let it stand for 6 to 8 weeks before bottling.
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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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Sugar
- Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation, and sweetness in the finished wine.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.
- Clary flowers
- Supply the floral aroma and flavour that the wine takes on during fermentation.
- Brandy
- Added at racking to raise the alcohol content and fortify the finished wine.
The step that matters
Adding the yeast mixture. Yeast needs water that has cooled to a warm, not hot, temperature to stay alive. Hot liquid can kill it, so the fermentation may never start. Cooling the boiled liquor first matters.
“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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