Put in orange and lemon peel, one ounce dry, or two ounces fresh; and add
white brandy ½ a gallon.
This will make nine gallons.
150. GOOSEBERRY WINE OF THE BEST QUALITY, RESEMBLING CHAMPAIGNE.
To each Scotch pint of full ripe gooseberries, mashed, add one Scotch pint of water, milk-warm, in which has been dissolved 1 lb. of single refined sugar: stir the whole well, and cover up the tub with a blanket, to preserve the heat generated by the fermentation of the ingredients: let them remain in this vessel three days, stirring them twice or three times a day: strain off the liquor through a sieve, afterwards through a coarse linen cloth; put it into the casks it will ferment without yeast. Let the cask be kept full with some of the liquor reserved for the purpose. It will ferment for ten days, sometimes for three weeks: when ceased, and only a hissing noise remains, draw off two or three bottles, according to the strength you wish it to have, from every 20 pint cask, and fill up the cask with brandy or whiskey; but brandy is preferable. To make it very good, and that it may keep well, add as much sherry, together with a ¼ oz. of isinglass dissolved in water to make it quite liquid; stir the whole well. Bung the cask up, and surround the bung with clay; the closer it is bunged the better; a fortnight after, if it be clear at the top, taste it; if not sweet enough, add more sugar; 22 lbs. is the just quantity in all for 20 pints of wine; leave the wine six months in the cask; but after being quite fine, the sooner it is bottled, the more it will sparkle and resemble champaigne. The process should be carried on in a place where the heat is between 48° and 56° Fahrenheit.—N. B. Currant wine may be made in the same manner.
151. TO MAKE BRITISH CHAMPAIGNE.
Take gooseberries before they are ripe, crush them with a mallet in a wooden bowl, and to every gallon of fruit put a gallon of water; let it stand two days, stirring it well; squeeze the mixture with the hands through a hop-sieve; then measure the liquor, and to every gallon put 3½ lbs. of loaf sugar; mix it well in the tub, and let it stand one day; put a bottle of the best brandy into the cask; which leave open five or six weeks, taking off the scum as it rises; then make it up, and let it stand one year in the barrel before it is bottled.
The proportion of brandy to be used for this liquor, is one pint to 7 gallons.
152. GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT WINE MIXED.
Take cold soft water, 6 gallons,
gooseberries, 4 do.
currants, 4 do.
Ferment.