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Drink

Unfermented Grape Juice

A beverage made by mashing Concord grapes, adding sugar, and simmering the juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Unfermented Grape Juice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grapes

  1. Weigh the grapes, including stones but not stems.

  2. Place the grapes in a porcelain-lined kettle with 1 pint of water.

Extract the juice

  1. Once the grapes burst, mash them through a sieve and strain thoroughly.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Return the juice to the kettle, add the sugar, and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Bottle immediately in preheated bottles, seal, and store away.

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. 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

Concord grapes
Provide the main flavour, natural acidity and pectin-rich pulp for the juice.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the grapes' tartness, and helps preserve the juice.
Water
Adds moisture so the grapes can heat and burst without scorching in the kettle.

The step that matters

Bottle immediately in preheated bottles. Hot juice poured into warm, sterile bottles and sealed promptly reduces the risk of contamination and spoilage. Cooling bottles or leaving juice exposed gives microbes a chance to grow before it is sealed.

“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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