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Drink

Raspberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, cider, raspberries, sugar, tartar, brandy, orange peel, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Raspberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine 6 gallons of water, 4 gallons of cider, 6 gallons of raspberries, 20 pounds of sugar, 3 ounces of red tartar, and 3 quarts of brandy in a large container. Add 2 ounces of dry orange peel.

  2. Alternatively, steam the berries and boil the juice. For every gallon of juice, add 1½ pounds of sugar.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add a little nice yeast.

  2. Once fermentation has ceased, add ½ pint of brandy to each gallon and cork it.

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. Cider + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  3. Cider + orangetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 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

Raspberries
Provide the main flavor and aroma of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and adds sweetness.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and stops fermentation when added at the end.
Red tartar
Adds acidity, which balances sweetness and supports a clean flavor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by hot liquid, so the mixture must be cool before the yeast goes in or fermentation may never start.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, 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.

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