Farmer’s marrow rum recipe
Comments(41)
I have discovered that stored in a cool location, marrows keep for weeks. Our marrow has waited to be turned into something delicious since mid September. It had gradually changed in colour from dark green to a paler green with small dashes of orange. It was time to give it the Cinderella treatment.
When Lindsey emailed me with a recipe for marrow rum that she had found in a 1954 cookbook. I could see a great future for our companion vegetable. Lindsey had tried to leave the recipe as a comment on the site and I discovered a few days later that my spam filter had gobbled up her comment. Apologies if this has ever happened to you.
So today this is Lindsey’s recipe with some other twists that I discovered on the excellent Selfsufficientish forum. There are quite a few recipes for marrow rum knocking about on the Internet. A few even use rum!
The forum discussion on marrow rum has some good pointers to making some great grog. mattachinelee has a similar recipe at the start but adds the sieved marrow flesh and cooled boiled water to the demijohn and leaves the grog in the airing cupboard for a year. I think that I am going to try his route with one change. When fermentation ceases I will rack off the grog into a clean demijohn. As I don’t like the idea of the grog sitting on the marrow ‘lees’ for a year.
Apparently marrow rum is amazingly potent stuff! Just the sort of grog that eases Cottager Smallholder inhabitants through a grey winter. I have seen marrows on sale recently. Why not give it a go?
Farmer’s Marrow rum recipe
Ingredients:
- I large ripe marrow with hard skin
- 3-5 lbs of demerara sugar
- Activated wine yeast (Lindsey suggests bread yeast would do at a pinch)
- Juice of an orange
Method:
- Slice off stalk end of the marrow with a bread knife. Savng enough to use as a lid. Remove all pith and seeds.
- Pack the cavity with demerara sugar.
- Pour over previously activated yeast and the juice of an orange.
- Replace top of marrow, seal with sellotape.
- Hang marrow in a muslin bag, cut end uppermost in a warm place.
- After 3 wks marrow may show signs of leaking out. Either make a hole in bottom of marrow and run liquid into fermenting jar. fit airlock, let ferment out. You can if you wish add a few raisins to fermenting jar. syphon off and bottle.
or
Lindsey suggests pack with yet more sugar, reseal and leave longer. This is from a recipe I found yesterday and as I want max juice…..!!
or
At this stage mattachinelee in the selfsufficientish forum takes a slightly different route. Pour the sugar mixture into the demi john. Scrape out the marrow flesh, sieve and adds this to the demi john through a funnel. Add more yeast and the juice of half an orange. Top up the demijohn to three quaters full with cooled boiled water to the demijohn. Fit an airlock and leave for a year in the airing cupboard. This will produce 5 pints of rum.
Lindsey points to a note from 1954 book: the longer you can keep this the better it will.
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HG
You are truly amazing! Should I ever make it over to your neck of the woods I shall be sure to have a sleeping bag in the car as I’m pretty sure having sampled some of your grog, driving afterwards would be illegal!
Sounds good to me ! ,think I’ll give this one a go cheaper still if you grow your own marrows .I have some tradefair brown sugar to use up so this is ideal.I have all my mother in laws old wine making books ,you have inspired me to get going ,it will be trial and error but good fun I’m sure Hic !!!!!
Are you sure it’s just one marrow in that bag? I think Inca might be in there too!!!!
Cliff says “When’s the tasting evening Fiona?”
You should have put a ‘Scream’ mask on that and used it as a Hallowe’en decoration.
Hi Amanda,
You would be always welcome here! We do have a spare bed too.
We only share our best grog with people that are staying overnight.
Need I say more…
Hi Celia,
Strangely Inca didn’t secrete herself into the pillow case. She was there, during the whole operation, pointy nose desperate to examine my latest project. The Companion Vegetable was large!
We would love to host a CS tasting event. Ideally an East Anglian Grog Fest. What we need is a sponsor to provide accommodation and a massive marquee. Open to any offers!
Hi Jan,
Great idea! Next year we’ll hang it on the front door!
Before I left England (1956) my Mother-in-law used to make marrow rum; she called it marrow wine. After filtering the liquid she used to give Christmas visitors a shot, I never saw anyone take two shots and still walk a straight line.
Your site (and this entry) makes me want to have a little cottage or farmhouse and become self sufficient … but alas, I only have a little flat and patio in the city centre, which only means that I can grow some herbs, a few tomatoes, and some fruit (blueberries and strawberries last year).
Hello Thad
Growing a few herbs, tomatoes, blueberries and strawberries is a triumph. Especially in a city centre.
Our life is good but very different. No Costa coffee, fashion and pizzazz. Not bonnets at dawn either. Just a gentle, rather isolated way of life that often veers towards the rut!
On the other hand, the marrow rum was better and more effective than anything that I have ever tasted in my life!
Damson Chutney is very nice and Damson Cheese a good recipie my Nan gave me is very nice if kept till Christmas with a good port and Stilton cheese
Hi Lou
I’d love to see the recipe for damson cheese.
Thank you for this recipe, Just set one up!
Will be trying this recipe,have a huge number of marrows this year.
Have a glut of marrows on my allotment. I will be there first thing in the morning. Look forward to trying this out. John O
Hello John O
Hope that it works out well for you.
Wandering around cyberspace looking for something to do with my marrow glut other than stuff them I found this. Now this is the kind of marrow stuffing I like the look of! I wonder how it will go with our scrumpy??!! Thank you
Hi Gillie
Long time no see. I really miss your blog
Well I now have two stuffed marrows hanging in their muslin “socks” above the aga! What with the scrumpy, the damson and sloe gin it’s all getting rather alcoholic round here!
Thanks for your kind words about the blog, but there just were not enough hours in the day. Too many other irons in the fire were getting ignored!
well after finding this article i have tried the marrow rum for myself. theres only so much you can do with the blighters!
My girlfriend thought we had to mix it with water and then put it in the demijohn to ferment, is this true?
Also what about fermenting temperature, i was goign to pop it in the old coal shed on my 1920s end terrace, would this be adequate?
thanks Paul
I made marrow rum some years ago and the walls of the marrow became too thin so I scooped out the flesh and mashed it up with demerera sugar and it turned out fine. I have one bottle left and that is now eight years old. It was good so must try the last bottle. This year I have grown pumpkins. Do you think I could try the same method with them. Maybe I’ll give it a try.
Dave U
Hello is there any reason why this could not be done with a pumkin?
except for the larger pillow case!
thanks alex
Please advise me as to the time from making ,to the stage that its drinkable, THANKS Gray.
Hi how long, before i can drink the rum after making , please,
Hi Gray
It takes a year to mature.
Thanks for your recipe! I tried to make this years ago, unfortunately i forgot to prick the bottom of the marrow and when i went back to it 8 weeks later my shed was covered in a syrupy marrow mixture.
how long do you leave the marrow? Until it has stopped dripping?
Hi Sam
You leave the marrow for 3 weeks.
Hi
I have made the marrow rum and it has been fermenting now for a few weeks, the bubbles have now really slowed down at what stage is it ready for bottling??
Thanks for recipes great site
Nicola
nice recipe will defo give it a go .i have recently found oranges cheap made a 5gallon mix with oranges lemons a few bannas and rasins yeast sugar nutrient fermented out added a whole bottle of vodka added mix to new vessel left for 3 months and it was bloody rocket fuel but when down like a summer drink……… give it a go … thanks for the marrow idea
Does this taste like rum?
I am going to give it a go, what size marrow would you recomend?
pete
lets hope it tastes better than your plum wine then pete!
anyone got any more ideas for marrow related dishes? i made the error of planting 7 seedlings an now my garden is over run with the things. although very impressive they are very bland. think ill go for something smaller next year! cheers,rob.
going full steam ahead with the marrow rum today as have more marrows than a grocer at the mo and also like the sound of a strong winter tipple.
I made this many years ago and used a pair of tights to hang the marrow up. You can then make a hole in the bottom with a nitting needle or such like and drain it out without moving the now limp sidded marrow.
I also used a darker suger than you did. I will try both methods this year.
I started my marrow rum yesterday but i also put rasins in as well i have an allotment in derby and my marrows are doing fine i have also made marrow lemon curd which worked fantastic.
ive fallen across a lovely idea for marrow chutney. i highly recomend!!!!
Hi Donnyrob
Is it using the marrow that is left over!!! Please share.
i have done marrow pickle too it is very yum
Hi i know this is an old Marrow Rum thread but i wonder if anyone can help me, This year we have had loads of huge Marrows from the Allotment, i say loads more like 4!! I have followed the 2 different ways to do it from the above links ive tried different types of yeast but it just will not ferment, Has anyone had the same problem or does anyone have some advice as i have another Marrow to start the process all over again
thanks
I have had a look round a few internet sites to find a receipe for the Marrow Rum. We chose the method of slicing the top of the marrow off, stuffing it with brown sugar and a bit of ginger half way down then made a hole at the bottom, popped it in a pair of tights and sat it in a vase. 2 weeks later the vase was full of liquid so we sterilised a wine bottle, strained the liquid again and stored it in the bottle.
The liquid is very sweet – doesn’t taste alcoholic and is quite thick (like medicine!) Is this correct?? Should the liquid be so thick? Please help??! Thanks
My wife tried this method, (cut off the top add sugar sellotape back on etc)
Beware:
After a month or so the marrow exploded like a bomb.
I don’t think I have to describe the damage it caused.
To this day when the family is gathered together, the subject comes up.
At least we can smile about it now.
Regards Geoff
This made my day I curled up laughing twice,especially the exploding marrow and the rocket fuel.
As my marrows are ripe and ready now i will ask again,is it the same quantity & methard as you add to a gallon of wine with the yeast? To stop my marrows exploding i will drill a hole in the top and push a airlock in!