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White Heart Cherry Wine

A fermented wine made from white heart cherries, white currants, angelica, honey, apples, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and apple work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 569 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

White Heart Cherry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and liquid

  1. Slice and boil the angelica in 3 pints of water.

  2. In a tub, bruise the cherries with a wooden pestle, breaking about a quarter of the stones.

Make the must

  1. Add the angelica and its liquid, honey, and grated apples to the bruised cherries.

  2. Pour in 4 gallons of water and mix well.

  3. Let the mixture sit for a week, keeping it well filled up.

Ferment and age

  1. When fermentation stops, tightly bung the cask and let it stand for six months before bottling.

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. Honey + appletop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

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

  2. Angelica + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. White currant + appletop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Angelica + honeytop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. White currant + honeytop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

White heart cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and sugar for fermentation in the wine.
Honey
Supplies fermentable sugar that feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and body.
White currants
Add acidity and fruity flavour to balance the sweetness of the wine.
Grated apples
Add extra fermentable sugar and pectin, contributing body and aroma.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture well filled up during the first week. Keeping the must topped up limits its contact with air, which helps prevent spoilage bacteria and vinegar-producing microbes from taking hold while fermentation starts.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (angelica, honey, apple):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against angelica, honey, apple. 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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