Joy of Home Wine Making (51 page)

This isn’t exactly cheap to make, but it’s very nice.

2 ozs. good instant coffee

2 cups sugar

4 ozs. really good vanilla (do not use imitation vanilla)

1-2 Madagascar or Tahitian vanilla beans (optional)

1 bottle brandy or vodka

Rinse the jar out with boiling water. Drain.

Heat the water, coffee, and the sugar to simmer. Remove from the heat and cool. If you are using the vanilla beans, chop them fine, losing none of the black inner seeds, and put them in the jar. Add the 4 ounces of vanilla. Pour in the coffee/sugar/water and stir. After two to three months, strain out the vanilla beans. Bottle. You might want to add more sugar.

A tablespoon or two of this in chocolate cookies, cake batter, or icing is a wonderful addition. It doesn’t overwhelm the chocolate but instead gives it more depth.

You can pour some rum or brandy over the vanilla beans after you have removed them; you will get more flavor out of them if you let them stand for another few months.

EASY WHISKEY LIQUEUR

Don’t use the best whiskey for this. A blended whiskey is just fine.

1 bottle whiskey

2 cups orange blossom honey

zest of 2 oranges or tangerines

4 tablespoons coriander seeds, bruised

Rinse out the jar with boiling water. Drain.

Mix everything together in the jar, put the lid on, and shake once a day for a month. Taste, and decide if you want more honey or more orange flavor. Strain or filter, and bottle the liqueur.

HERBAL OR FLOWER LIQUEUR

This could be tricky. It really depends on what you like and how you like it. Many commercial liqueurs have herbs and spices in them. I think blends work better than single herbs, spices, or flowers (except for roses).

I tried making lemon balm liqueur once, and it tasted like my favorite bath shampoo. I made mint liqueur once, and it tasted like sweet Listerine. If you can get the tiny, low-growing Corsican mint, you’ve got the proper kind for crème de menthe.

The general idea is the same in the previous recipes. Flowers should be only those you are certain are not poisonous. Herbs can be fresh or fresh dried. Spices should be used with a judicious hand. Citrus is always a nice note.

For flowers, use 1-2 cups fresh petals; for fresh herbs, about 1 cup; for spices, 2-3 tablespoons. You can make small batches and see which ones you like and which ones you don’t, and then blend to see what combinations you like.

Don’t hesitate to try other fruits. You really can’t go too far wrong. The stronger the flavor of the fruit, the less of it you need to use. The softer the flavor, the more you need. Experiment and have fun.

FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES

For those of you who don’t like or can’t tolerate alcohol, homemade soda pop is fun and easy. There is a little alcohol in it, but only a tiny bit. Many commercial soda pops have a little bit in them, too.

Extracts are easily available at a grocery store or at the wine and beer supply store. I prefer the kinds from the wine supply store. You can get cola, root beer, sarsaparilla, ginger ale, cherry, raspberry, and probably a few others.

There is also no reason you can’t use regular flavoring as extracts. The colors won’t be as attractive, and you might have to double the amount of extract you use, but hey, coconut soda pop? Pineapple? It might be worth a try.

The kind from the wine supply store comes in 4 ounce bottles, and supposedly you can get four gallons of soda from each one,
but it is my experience that only a very young child will care for the weak taste if you make them at that dilution!

If you know how to make and bottle beer or cider, you are halfway there. You can follow the various directions the extracts give, or you can follow mine, which makes less soda but has pretty good flavor.

First, I recommend that you use champagne yeast for this. In a pinch you can use a beer yeast, but champagne comes out the best. You don’t want to use the whole packet of yeast, only a little of it, so you could start some wine while you make the soda, or you could make more than one kind of soda!

If you wrap it up tight and keep it in the fridge, the leftover yeast keeps for about a month.

Use only the returnable kind of beer or soda bottles, washed clean, and soaked overnight in a tub of water with 2 ounces chlorine bleach per five gallons of water to sanitize. Use new crown caps, boiled for five minutes and left in the water until you use them. Sanitize a primary fermenter.

SODA POP

4 ozs. Homebrew brand extract, any flavor OR 4-6 ozs. other extracts (be sure to shake the bottle before using)

2½ gallons water

4½ cups sugar

¼-½ tsp. champagne yeast

24-28 12 oz. beer or soda bottles and crown caps

Dissolve the yeast in one cup of the water at body temperature, and let it sit for five minutes.

Mix the sugar and most of the extract with enough of the rest of the water to dissolve the sugar in the primary fermenter at warm body temperature (not over 100°).

They say to use warm tap water, but I’ve heard it isn’t good for you to use warm or hot tap water for anything other than washing, so I would advocate using cold tap water, adding boiling water until you get the right temperature. Use your floating thermometer or apply the scientific guess-and-by-golly test of dipping your wrist in the water to see how hot is it…carefully. Dipping in your big toe is not acceptable.

Stir until you don’t hear any of the sugar scraping along the
sides and bottom and you are sure the sugar is dissolved. A clean metal spoon is fine for this purpose.

Now add the yeast and the rest of the warm water. Taste it and see how you like it. Add the last ounce or so of the extract. Sometimes the strength differs from package to package, so this is a way of making sure it isn’t too strong. You can always add a little more water and sugar, too.

Fill the drained, rinsed bottles with your racking tube, leaving an inch or two in the neck. Seal with a crown capper. Make sure the seals are good.

Rinse off the outsides of the bottles, and put them in a covered cardboard box (a beer case is good). Keep them in a cool (but not cold), dark place for a couple of weeks. If you are nervous, place the box near a drain in case you mismeasured the sugar.

Before you serve, chill the bottles for at least an hour, and open them carefully over the sink. There will be a little sediment on the bottom, so once you start pouring, just keep going until you get to the sediment and stop. The sediment won’t hurt you, but it isn’t pretty. Serve your sparkling beverage with pride.

I tend to make a sugar syrup instead of going the dry sugar route, because I think the carbonation is more even.

If using honey, use a tiny bit more than you would sugar. Boil it into a syrup, especially if you are serving this to very young children, who should not eat uncooked honey.

Champagne bottles and a bench capper make this whole process go a lot faster.

There’s no law saying you can’t blend extracts!

I make my own ginger beer extract by simmering four to eight ounces of fresh sliced ginger for an hour or two. However, it’s trickier to do because you can’t always predict how much flavor any one stem of ginger will have. Still, sometimes it’s fun to live a little dangerously, and Jamaican ginger beer spoiled me. If you try this, add the zest and juice of two to three lemons or 2 to 3 teaspoons citric acid to the brew.

NEVER add more sugar than is recommended in the instructions!!!

Soda pop made this way will keep for up to a year if it is kept cool, or about three months in warm weather.

DREGS

There is a lot to be learned about home winemaking—more than I could ever put into this book, and there’s still more to learn. I hope this book gets you off to a good start. Let me know how things go.