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Drink

Currant Wine

A fermented beverage made from ripe currants, brown 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 ↓

Currant Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the ripe currants with your hands or a broad wooden spoon.

  2. Strain the juice through a strong bag.

  3. Measure your cask.

  4. Pour one-third of the cask's volume with the pure juice.

  5. Place the cask in a firm position in the cellar with a spigot.

Add the sugar and water

  1. Dissolve the brown sugar in a bucket of water.

  2. Pour the dissolved sugar solution into the cask.

  3. Add more water to the remaining sugar in the bucket until all is in the cask.

  4. Fill the cask with water to the bung and leave it open for ten days to ferment.

Ferment and age

  1. On the tenth day, remove the froth from around the bung-hole using your little finger.

  2. Add ½ cup of good brandy to a six-gallon cask.

  3. Tightly seal the bung.

  4. Secure the bung in a day or two.

  5. Let the cask remain undisturbed until January 1.

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

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

  3. Currant + sugartop 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

Ripe currants
Provide the juice that gives the wine its flavour and acidity.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and body.
Good brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the wine and stops fermentation.

The step that matters

Leave the cask open for ten days to ferment. Fermentation needs air and yeast activity to start, so the cask is left open and the froth is skimmed. Sealing too early can trap pressure and stop the wine from fermenting properly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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

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