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Drink

Apple Wine

A fermented apple cider made by dissolving sugar and fermenting for a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,308 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the brown sugar in the cider.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a clean barrel, filling it up to within 2 gallons of the top with clean cider.

Ferment

  1. Place the barrel in a cool location, leaving the bung out for 48 hours.

  2. After 48 hours, insert the bung tightly until fermentation ceases.

  3. In one year, the wine will be ready for use.

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. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol, giving the wine its body and sweetness base.
Cider
Forms the liquid base and supplies the apple flavor that carries through the finished wine.

The step that matters

Timing the bung. Leaving the bung out for the first 48 hours lets carbon dioxide escape during the busiest part of fermentation. Sealing it tightly only after that period keeps air out while the wine finishes fermenting, which protects it from spoilage and off flavors.

“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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