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Currant Wine

A fermented wine made from red and white currants, powdered sugar, raspberries, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Squeeze the currants well and let them drain through a sieve over the powdered sugar.

  2. Once the sugar is completely dissolved, transfer the mixture into a barrel.

  3. Add the raspberries and a little brandy.

  4. Seal the barrel and let it ferment for three 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. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. White currant + brandytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Red currants
Provide the main juice, tartness and flavour base for the wine.
White currants
Add more juice and a lighter acidity to balance the wine.
Powdered sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness and alcohol level.
Raspberries
Add aroma and fruity flavour to the wine.

The step that matters

Sealing the barrel for fermentation. Fermentation needs time without air exposure to develop alcohol and flavour cleanly. Opening the barrel early or letting air in can let spoilage microbes take hold and sour the wine.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, sugar, brandy):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Currantfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, 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.

More currant wine recipes

Black 28Red 22Sauce 9White 8 See all 158 →

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