Name: Grape Juice
Ingredients: 10 cups Concord or mixed varieties of grapes; 3 cups water (for first cooking); 3 cups water (for second cooking); 2 cups sugar

Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Grape Juice

Ingredients

10 cups Concord or mixed varieties of grapes
3 cups water (for first cooking)
3 cups water (for second cooking)
2 cups sugar

Directions

Extract the juice

Mash the grapes and cook them in 3 cups of water.
Strain the mixture and add 3 more cups of water to the grapes.
Cook and strain again.

Sweeten and seal

Add 2 cups of sugar to the juice and boil for 5 minutes.
Skim the juice and seal it while hot.
Serve with sugar, lemon juice, a sprig of mint, and a thin slice of lemon.

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.

Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes: Provide the flavour and colour of the juice and most of its liquid when cooked and strained.
Water: Softens the grapes so their juice can be drawn out during cooking and straining.
Sugar: Sweetens the juice and balances the natural tartness of the grapes.

“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.