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
Remove the stalks from the damsons and place the fruit in an earthenware bowl.
Pour the boiling water over the damsons and cover with a cloth.
Stir the mixture 3 to 4 times daily for 4 days.
Make the wine
After 4 days, add the sugar and brandy, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Transfer the mixture into a clean, dry cask.
Cover the bunghole with a cloth folded in several thicknesses.
Store
Once bottled, store in a dry place; the wine can be kept for years if well corked.
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.
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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, acidity and flavour that give the wine its character.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the wine and feeds the fermentation that turns sugar into alcohol.
- French brandy
- Adds alcohol that helps preserve the wine and supports its keeping over time.
The step that matters
Dissolving the sugar fully. Sugar added after the fruit has steeped must dissolve completely by stirring, so it is evenly distributed and available to the yeast for fermentation. Undissolved sugar can leave uneven sweetness and inconsistent fermentation.
“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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