Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Red Currant Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Pick the currants from the stalks and bruise them in a tub.
Add 1 gallon of water for every gallon of currants and let it stand for 24 hours.
Strain the mixture and add 3.5 pounds of sugar for every gallon of liquid.
Mix well and let it stand for 3 to 4 days.
Remove the scum and transfer to a barrel.
Age and bottle
Once it stops hissing, add 1 quart of brandy for every 9-gallon cask.
Seal the barrel and let it stand for 12 months 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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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
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
- Ripe currants
- Provide the main fruit flavor and the juice that ferments into the wine.
- Lisbon sugar
- Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness and body in the finished wine.
- Brandy
- Added after fermentation settles to raise the alcohol level and stabilize the wine.
The step that matters
Adding the brandy. Brandy should be added only after the hissing stops, when fermentation has slowed. Adding it earlier can halt fermentation before the sugar is consumed, leaving the wine sweeter and less stable.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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