Winemaking!

[LadyA]

This year, I've decided to have a go at making wine from my fruit glut! plum wine has been started, and is bubbling away (very!) merrily, and I'm hoping to do an apple wine too. Shame you have to wait so long to taste the results, but fingers crossed! I've always wanted to try wine making! But, until recently when I was able to come off the migraine medication I've been on for about 16 years, I couldn't drink alcohol, so it seemed pointless. Let's hope it works!

[Hen-Gen]

I hope so to, LadyA. As an 18 year old university student I went to visit a friend who was a farmers son in Anglesey. Glorious hot day, ploughman’s lunch and elderflower champagne. One of those unforgettable occasions of bliss. But since then I’ve tried a whole raft of home made wines from parsnip to raspberry to birch sap and they have all been, without exception, awful.
So good luck with your efforts.
I’ve a friend who makes sloe gin. Now that is seriously good. Tried those various Smirnoff vodkas. The black pepper one from the freezer in frozen glasses was, I thought, with lump fish caviar the height of sophistication. It’s still talked about round these parts as the worst drink ever tasted on the island.

[LadyA]

I also make a sort of plum brandy-almost-liquer, from a 70cl bottle of Lidl brandy, 500g plums, well pricked with a fork, 125g sugar, pared zest of a lemon and a cinnamon stick. Put it all in a large jar, cover and shake well. Keep in a dark place and shake every few days for about three months.

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[bigyetiman]

We have a bumper crop of plums this year, so plum crumble a plenty and plum jam. Like the sound of the plum brandy/liqueur.
Good luck with wine making.

[chrismahon]

Years ago I won a bottle of Sloe Gin and wasn't expecting much as I dislike Gin. Came as quite a surprise how nice it is- we have sloes growing here so perhaps it's time to revisit that great taste.

The best wine I ever made was a gallon of elderberry, using a very strong yeast that needed to be started separately. It takes a long time to mature so picked and processed Autumn one year and drunk around Christmas of the next.

With wine sold here at €1.45 per litre and all our equipment given to friends before we left the UK, we won't be brewing wine again.

[Margaid]

Having had access to Damson trees at one time I made gallons of damson gin and vodka - still getting through it as it is quite potent. Adding a full calorie straight tonic (i.e no flavour except quinine) makes a lovely change. I've made Sloe gin, but damsons don't need pricking!

[LadyA]

Have to say - the plum wine is a resounding success!

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[dianefairhall]

Oh, Goodo! Shame we can't taste it. I used to make cherry brandy in a similar manner to your plum brandy. Worked very well - might try again.

[LadyA]

Oh, Goodo! Shame we can't taste it. I used to make cherry brandy in a similar manner to your plum brandy. Worked very well - might try again.

Yes, I've done cherry too, but cherries are pretty expensive, whereas the plums are free! I'm not much of a drinker so wouldn't really be able to compare, but my son in law says the wine tastes "deceptively light"!

[Margaid]

[my son in law says the wine tastes "deceptively light"!

That's the problem with home made wine, people think it's innocuous but it isn't'! My late mother-in-law used to make mulberry wine amongst others, as there was a HUGE mulberry tree in the garden. A small glass of that and I never had trouble sleeping, proximity to graveyard and church clock having no effect whatsoever!

My parents became Methodists (Mummy Welsh Baptist, Daddy Anglican so a reasonable compromise!). Dyed in the wool Methodists abhor alcohol and Daddy used to tease any church friends that came to the house with an offer of "drink"! He once offered them homemade rhubarb wine which they must have thought would be non-alcoholic. He had to help them out to the car and drive them home!