Joy of Home Wine Making (34 page)

The quantity of sugar used in making these wines is going to be a little more than you are used to, because there is no sugar in flowers or herbs. These wines are not usually drunk with a meal, so I make them with a high alcohol content so they will keep longer.

BASIC HERB OR FLOWER RECIPE

4-6 cups, packed lightly, of herbs or flowers

1 gallon water

3 lbs. sugar or 3½ lbs. honey

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

¹
/
₈
tsp. tannin

no pectic enzyme

3 tsps. acid blend or juice of 2 fresh lemons

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

1 packet champagne or Montrachet yeast

Rinse off fresh herbs or flowers under cold running water to remove dust, dirt, insects, etc. For flower wines, use only the petals. Discard any green parts. For herb wines, remove any dead leaves or other plants that have gotten mixed in. For dried herbs, just make sure there are no pebbles or twigs mixed in.

Put the herbs or flowers into a 2 quart saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Pour a quart of the water over them. Bring the water to a simmer, put on the lid, and turn the heat off. Let this mixture steep for one to two hours, or as many as six, depending on how strong or subtle you want the flavor to be. Remember, the flavor and fragrance of flowers are delicate, so don’t steep the flowers too long.

In the meantime, boil the rest of the water with the sugar or honey (or half of each). Skim, if necessary, put a lid on it, and allow it to cool.

Strain the quart of herb water into a sanitized primary fermenter. Add the sugar/honey water, yeast nutrient, tannin, and acid or lemon juice. Add the Campden tablet after the mixture has cooled, if you choose to use one. Cover and fit with an air lock.

Twenty-four hours later, add the yeast.

Ferment 3-5 days in the primary fermenter until the PA reaches 3 to 4 percent, then rack the wine into a glass secondary fermenter, bung, and fit with an air lock.

Ferment the wine another month. Rack it again, then wait three to six months until fermented out, and bottle it. Stabilize and sweeten if you like. It’s drinkable anywhere from three months to a year later, depending on the herb or flower. Dandelion takes a full year, other flower wines take less time. Herbal wines are usually ready to drink within three to six months. These wines usually keep very well, but you must be extra careful to keep them from light.

MELLOW MINT WINE

Here’s my favorite herb wine. Mint is an example of an herb that offers a wonderful taste with a minimum amount of leaves. Any kind of mint will do, but apple mint and orange mint seem the best to me. I made spearmint wine once, and it tasted hauntingly like a popular chewing gum.

Use this wine in the summer, chilled in a wine cooler, or over ice with some extra sprigs of mint in it. I’ve used it as a base for punch many a time, even in winter. You can also use it instead of white wine in fruit cup. Delicious!

With this wine, the ferment has a tendency to stick or stop. See the troubleshooting section in the back of the book if this happens. Keep it warm while fermenting, and don’t overload it with sugar.

4 cups, packed lightly, of fresh mint

1 gallon water

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

¼ tsp. tannin

3 tsps. acid blend

3 lbs. sugar or 3½ lbs. honey

1 packet champagne or Montrachet yeast

Follow the general method for herb wine on the previous page. Don’t steep the mint too long—no more than an hour or so is needed. I use the acid blend in this recipe because I don’t want a citrus taste. The wine is more versatile without it, I think, but you can use lemon if you want. I like this a bit sweet, but be very careful to keep it from coming out
too
sweet. I have added a tiny
bit of green food coloring to this wine upon occasion, because sometimes it comes out a sickly yellow green that needs some help in the form of a drop or two. Keep a year before drinking.

RYE NOT KUMMEL WINE

If anyone in your family is from eastern Europe, you may already be familiar with the taste of this wine. Kummel, or caraway, as we know it in this country, is a popular flavoring for schnapps or sweet liqueurs in many European countries. In this country it ends up in rye bread and sauerkraut, but there are many other uses for this abundant seed. It is supposed to be very good for the digestion. Be sure to use fresh caraway.

2 ozs. caraway seed (kummel)

1 gallon water

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

¼ tsp. tannin

3 tsps. acid blend or juice of 2 fresh lemons

3 lbs. sugar or 3½ lbs. honey

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

1 packet champagne or Montrachet yeast

Follow the general herb and flower recipe method in Basic Herb or Flower Recipe . An alternative way to make this wine is to soak the seed for about four hours in a half cup of warmed brandy or vodka to extract the flavor, then strain out the seeds. You can either include the seeds in a fine straining bag for the initial fermentation, or throw them into a batch of bread.

Bottle the wine dry or slightly sweetened, depending on your taste. This keeps well.

Serve this wine warm, like sake, or very cold, as a social drink. Some people won’t like it; others will rave about it. You never know. Other seeds you can use are dill and cumin.

BRADBURY DANDELION WINE

Ray Bradbury wrote a book called
Dandelion Wine,
which had a profound effect on me as a teen. It changed the way I read and the way I wrote. He also stepped on my foot in an elevator once, but I’m sure it was an accident, and no harm was done. Here’s my chance to thank him for his contributions to my imagination.