Another way.
Take twenty-four pounds of cherries, cleared from the stalks, and mash them in an earthen pan; then put the pulp into a flannel bag, and let them remain till the whole of the juice has drained from the pulp. Put a pound of loaf sugar into the pan which receives the juice, and let it remain until the sugar is dissolved. Bottle it, and, when it has done working, you may put into each bottle a small lump of sugar.
Cowslip Wine. No. 1.
To twenty gallons of water, wine measure, put fifty pounds of lump sugar; boil it, and skim it till it is very clear; then put it into a tub to cool, and, when just warm, put to it two tea-spoonfuls of ale yest. Let it work for a short time; then put in fifteen pecks of cut cowslips, and the juice of twenty large lemons, likewise the outward rinds pared off as thin as possible. Keep it in the tub two or three days, stirring it twice each day. Then put it all together in a barrel, cleansed and dried. Continue to stir twice a day for a week or more, till it has done working; then stop it up close for three months, and bottle it off for use.
The cowslips should be gathered in one day, and the wine made as soon as possible after, as the fresh flowers make the wine of a finer colour than when they are withered; but they will not hurt by being kept for a few days if they are spread on a cloth, and moved every day.
Cowslip Wine. No. 2.
To a gallon of water put three pounds of lump sugar; boil them together for an hour, skimming all the while. Pour it upon the cowslips, and, when milk warm, put into it a toast, with yest spread pretty thick upon it; let it stand all night, and then add two lemons and two Seville oranges to each gallon. Stir it well in a tub twice a day for two or three days; then turn it; stir it every day for a fortnight, and bung it up close. It will be fit for bottling in six weeks. To every gallon of water you must take a gallon of cowslips. They must be perfectly dry before they are used, and there should be as many gallons of cowslips as gallons of water; they should be measured as they are picked, and turned into the cask. Dissolve an ounce of isinglass, and put to it when cold. The lemons must be peeled.
Cowslip Wine. No. 3.
Take fourteen gallons of water and twenty-four pounds of sugar; boil the water and sugar one hour; skim it till it is clear. Let it stand till nearly cold; then pour it on three bushels of picked cowslips, and put to it three or four spoonfuls of new yest; let it stand and work in your vessel till the next day; then put in the juice of thirty lemons and the peels of ten, pared thin. Stir them well together; bung up the vessel close for a month; then bottle it.