Grocock and Grainger's Apicius has a very nice glossary in the back which goes into the finer points of ingredients the Romans used; according to them, caroenum is probably a syrup made from reduced wine or must, must being freshly pressed grape juice with the skins and stalks still in it, i.e. the state of pre-wine that has just been squished by the feet of dancing satyrs. As I don't have access to that right now (though my sister does have a grape arbor and may be persuaded to give me some fresh grapes come fall), I used unsweetened grape juice from the supermarket, boiled down to a syrup.
There has apparently been much debate about how reduced caroenum should be; Grocock and Grainger argue that it's less about the exact amount the must is reduced and more about the finished consistency, which will depend on how sweet the must originally was anyway. They also say that caroenum appears to have been thinner than defrutum, another syrup that could be flavored with quinces or figs to make it richer. Caroenum seems in part to have been used in the recipes to add a bit of sweetness but also bulk, rather than flavor like defrutum.
I started with a 64-ounce bottle of unsweetened white grape juice, intending to boil it down to about half; as I was doing that I went hunting for a pretty bottle to put it in. Said pretty bottle turned out to hold about two and a half cups, which practical consideration is what ultimately decided me on how much to reduce it. So I simmered it down to about one third of its original volume, which took about an hour. It was still a fairly thin syrup and not overly sweet. Here it is in the pretty bottle, ooooh:
A little time in the fridge did make it a bit thicker, like it was a proper syrup. So then, off to try that mushroom recipe!
ETA: I made a version of caroenum from fresh grapes; that post is here.
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