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Drink

Damson Wine

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Damson Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the stalks from the damsons and place the fruit in an earthenware bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the damsons and cover with a cloth.

  3. Stir the mixture three to four times daily for 4 days.

Ferment

  1. Add the sugar and brandy, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a clean, dry cask and cover the bunghole with a cloth until fermentation ceases.

  3. Once fermentation is complete, bung the cask tightly and store it undisturbed for 12 months in a moderately warm place.

  4. After 12 months, rack the wine off into bottles.

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

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

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

Damsons
Provide the fruit flavour, colour and natural sugars that the wine is made from.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the wine and feeds the fermentation that produces alcohol.
French brandy
Raises the alcohol content, helping to preserve the wine during long storage.

The step that matters

Covering the cask during fermentation. The cloth over the bunghole lets gas escape while keeping out airborne contaminants and fruit flies. Sealing the cask too early can trap pressure and risk spoilage, so the bung should only go in once fermentation is complete.

“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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