Monday, January 18, 2010

Wine Making With Elderberry



Remember the story from Arsenic and Old Lace where the two old ladies passed the time wine making with elderberry and then lacing it with a deadly mixture to poison lonely old men? Not a very good reference for elderberry wine or wine making but for me it brings back memories of my youth when my grandfather would make wine from elderberries and all of us grandkids would even get to taste it on special occasions. A more recent use of the topic came from a song released by Elton John in 1973 called Elderberry Wine. A few years ago I decided to bring back my grandfather's yearly wine making ritual and start producing my own. I didn't have his recipe but I remembered watching him and had a good idea what it entailed and after doing some research, I settled on the following recipe:

3 gallons of ripe elderberries
3 gallons of boiling water
3 lbs. of granulated sugar
1 lb. of raisins
1 ounce of ginger
1 lemon (squeezed)
1/2 ounce of wine yeast

Clean and crush the berries and place them in a clean and sanitized bucket along with the ginger, raisins and lemon juice . Pour the sugar on top of the mixture. Then pour the boiling water on top of the sugar and berry mixture. Wait until the mixture cools and then add the yeast. Cover the bucket and place the mixture in a warm place for a week, stirring the mixture at least once a day.

Strain the berries through muslin into another clean and sanitized bucket making sure that you don't squeeze too hard or you'll end up with syrup. AFter straining, pour the wine into a demijohn or some other glass bottles that you can seal with a cork, preferably clear glass so you can keep an eye on the formentation process. Place the the bottle(s) in a warm place like a kitchen cupboard. Don't let the containers become too hot, just warm. Then sit back and wait as the formentation process can take as long as a year for elderberry wine. You'll know it's ready when the mixture stops bubbling.

Take the wine and bottle it up in wine bottles, making sure that you don't get any of the sediment in it, and seal with a cork. All that's left now is to enjoy.

There are many uses for elderberry and making wine with elderberry can be fun, but time consuming but if you're willing to wait, the rewards are delicious.

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