To each gallon of water (boiled and left till cold) 8 lbs. of fine Malaga raisins; to stand 12 months; then to be drawn off and fined.
Obs.—The refuse raisins make admirable vinegar if fresh water be poured to them, and the cask placed in the sun. March is the best time for making the wine.
VERY GOOD ELDERBERRY WINE.
Strip the berries, which should be ripe and fresh, and gathered on a dry day, clean from the stalks, and measure them into a tub or large earthen pan. Pour boiling water on them, in the proportion of two gallons to three of berries, press them down into the liquor, cover them closely, and let them remain until the following day; then strain the juice from the fruit through a sieve or cloth, and, when this is done, squeeze from the berries the greater part of the remaining juice; mix it with that which was first poured off, measure the whole, add to it three pounds of sugar, three-quarters of an ounce of cloves, and one ounce of ginger, for every gallon, and boil it twenty minutes, keeping it thoroughly skimmed. Put it, when something more than milk-warm, into a perfectly dry and sweet cask (or if but a very small quantity of wine be made, into large stone bottles, which answer for the purpose quite well), fill this entirely, and pour very gently into the bung hole a large spoonful of new yeast mixed with a very small quantity of the wine.
VERY GOOD GINGER WINE.
Boil together, for half an hour, fourteen quarts of water, twelve pounds of sugar, a quarter of a pound of the best ginger bruised, and the thin rinds of six large lemons. Put the whole, when milk-warm, into a clean dry cask, with the juice of the lemons, and half a pound of sun raisins; add one large spoonful of thick yeast, and stir the wine every day for ten days. When it has ceased to ferment, add an ounce of isinglass, and a pint of brandy; bung the wine close, and in two months it will be fit to bottle, but must remain longer in the cask should it be too sweet. When it can be obtained, substitute for the water in this receipt cider fresh from the press, which will give a very superior wine.
Water, 14 quarts; sugar, 12 pounds; lemon-rinds, 6: ginger, 1/4 lb.: 1/2 hour. Juice of lemons, 6; raisins, 1/2 lb.; yeast, 1 spoonful; isinglass, 1 oz.; brandy, 1 pint.
EXCELLENT ORANGE WINE.
Take half a chest of Seville oranges, pare off the rinds as thin as possible, put two-thirds of them into six gallons of water, and let them remain for twenty-four hours. Squeeze the oranges (which ought to yield seven or eight quarts of juice) through a sieve into a pan, and as they are done throw them into six gallons more of water; let them be washed well in it with the hands, and then put into another six gallons of water and left until the following day. For each gallon of wine, put into the cask three pounds and a quarter of loaf sugar, and the liquor strained clear from the rinds and pulp. Wash these again and again, should more liquor be required to fill the cask; but do not at any time add raw water. Stir the wine daily until the sugar is perfectly dissolved, and let it ferment from four to five weeks; add to it two bottles of brandy, stop it down, and in twelve months it will be fit to bottle.
Obs.—The excellence of all wine depends so much upon the fermentation being properly conducted, that unless the mode of regulating this be understood by the maker, there will always be great danger of failure in the operation. There is, we believe, an excellent work upon the subject by Mr. McCulloch, which the reader who needs information upon it will do well to consult: our own experience is too slight to enable us to multiply our receipts.