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Drink

Apple Wine

A fermented apple beverage made by crushing apples, adding sugar, and allowing natural fermentation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Crush the apples lightly in a pan.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the apples and cover.

  3. Let it stand for two weeks.

  4. Strain the mixture and measure the juice.

Make the must

  1. For each pound of juice, add 1 pound of loaf sugar moistened in hot water.

  2. Dissolve the sugar and pour the liquid into crocks.

  3. Cover with a sheet of paper or cloth, but do not cork.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Let it stand until a thick scum forms on top.

  2. Remove the scum with a quill or by using the tap.

  3. If no more scum rises by the next day, bottle, cork, and seal.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide the juice and flavour that the wine is built on.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides the sweetness and alcohol in the finished wine.

The step that matters

Removing the scum before bottling. The thick scum that forms on top during fermentation must be cleared, and the wine only bottled once no more scum rises. Corking too early can trap gas and cause the wine to spoil or burst.

“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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