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White Currant Wine

A fermented wine made from currants, sugar, water, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Squeeze the currants into an earthen pan and strain through a sieve.

  2. Combine the pulp with water, using water from the total amount allowed.

Ferment

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the specified water and pour it into a cask.

  2. Add the remaining juice and water, stirring well.

  3. Stir the mixture every morning for 10 days.

  4. As fermentation occurs, top up the cask until fermentation is complete.

  5. Add the brandy and seal the cask tightly.

  6. Let it age for 8 to 12 months before drinking.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the sweetness and alcohol in the finished wine.
Currant juice
Supplies the fruit flavour and acidity that give the wine its character.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps stabilise the wine as it ages.

The step that matters

Topping up the cask during fermentation. Fermentation pushes foam and gas out of the cask. Keeping it topped up limits air contact, which can let spoilage organisms or oxidation spoil the wine.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, wine. 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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