Book review: Two good books for winemaking by C J J Berry and Gillian Pearks
Back in the seventies, when buying a bottle of wine was an expensive treat, the author C. J. J. Berry shot to fame with his series of amateur winemaking books. This is the rather smooth looking character on the left. He cashed in on the great home winemaking boom of the sixties and seventies. As glugable wine began to fill supermarket shelves, the home winemaking craze declined and you could often find his books in charity shops. Now that country winemaking is enjoying a small renaissance his books are becoming sought after again. The best of...
read moreRaspberry gin recipe
This recipe can also be used for blackberry gin and vodka Our autumn fruiting raspberries are late, but they’re finally here. Just a few of them. Succulent and tempting and the promise of more to follow. If you grow autumn fruiting raspberries you might like to have a go at making this delicious raspberry gin. The liqueur is delicate yet has a fresh raspberry bite that makes a change from the raunchiness of sloe gin. (This is a fresh review. I nipped out to the barn this evening to try some of our July 2006 vintage and it was superb....
read moreRecipe for Bullace Vodka
A friend from Kent gave us a small bag of bullaces (a small type of plum that grows wild in English hedgerows) last October. We bunged them into a small Le Parfait jar, topping it up with sugar and vodka. We found the forgotten jar last weekend, hidden behind some pickled plums. It was excellent. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, it didn’t last very long. As with all fruit liqueurs, you can use gin or vodka as the base. We have a preference for gin in fruit liqueurs but this bullace vodka was superb. We will certainly make...
read moreTwo recipes: Wild Damson Gin and Sloe Gin recipes
Unlike sloes, wild damsons are hard to find. For every thirty wild plum trees there may be just one wild damson tree. When I spot wild damsons in the hedgerows, they are harvested into a special bag. These, and the diminutive bullace, are the kings of hedgerow fruit. These tiny fruit make such an irresistible liqueur that overnight guests have actually turned down Danny’s famous cooked breakfast, and gone back to bed to sleep off the excesses of the night before. Our damson and sloe gin is not the thick ultra sweet variety. We prefer...
read morePea pod wine – sounds disgusting, must be good!
The first wine that I wanted to make was Pea Pod. This wine had a starring role in an episode of The Good Life. As our peas had barely produced a flower let alone a pod, I searched the vegetable section of Tesco and found fresh peas in the pod. I hadn’t realised how light pea pods are. As I podded steadily, Danny made a mercy dash to buy yet more packs to get the right weight of pods for the must.The next few weeks driving the car became quite hazardous as it was hard not to keep an eye on the hedgerows for damsons and plums. Kind...
read moreRacking the rhubarb wine
Tonight Danny has gone to bed early and I am racking off the rhubarb wine. It has been in the airing cupboard for a couple of months and I want to move it to the barn, which is cool and perfect for storing fermenting demijohns. Racking the wine is good as it skims the wine from the leys, removes dead yeast and activates the live yeast. It’s been a year since we started to make country wine. I’d noticed that our elder tree was in bud, swiftly followed by glorious creamy white heads of flowers. It was watching a client make...
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