To ten gallons of water, put ten quarts of the juice of white elder-berries, pressed gently from the berries by the hand, and passed through a sieve, without bruising the seeds: add to every gallon of liquor three pounds of Lisbon sugar, and to the whole quantity two ounces of ginger sliced, and one ounce of cloves. Boil this nearly an hour, taking off the scum as it rises, and pour the whole to cool, in an open tub, and work it with ale yeast, spread upon a toast of bread, for three days. Then turn it into a vessel that will just hold it, adding about a pound and a half of bruised raisins, to lay in the liquor till drawn off, which should not be done till the wine is fine.
This wine is so much like the fine rich wine brought from the island of Cyprus, in colour, taste, and flavour, that it has deceived the best judges.
176. ELDER-FLOWER WINE; OR ENGLISH FRONTINIAC.
Boil eighteen pounds of white powdered sugar in six gallons of water, and two whites of eggs well beaten; skim it, and put in a quarter of a peck of elder-flowers; do not keep them on the fire. When cool, stir it, and put in six spoonsful of lemon juice, four or five of yeast, and beat well into the liquor: stir it well every day; put six pounds of the best raisins, stoned, into the cask, and tun the wine. Stop it close, and bottle it in six months. When well kept, this wine will pass very well for Frontiniac.
177. Another.
To six gallons of spring water put six pounds of sun raisins cut small, and a dozen pounds of fine sugar; boil the whole together for about an hour and a half. When the liquor is cold, put half a peck of ripe elder flowers in, with about a gill of lemon-juice, and half the quantity of ale yeast. Cover it up, and, after standing three days, strain it off. Now pour it into a cask that is quite clean, and that will hold it with ease. When this is done, put a quart of Rhenish wine to every gallon; let the bung be slightly put in for twelve or fourteen days; then stop it down fast, and put it in a cool place for four or five months, till it be quite settled and fine; then bottle it off.
178. IMITATION OF PORT WINE.
Take 6 gallons of good cider,
1½ gallons of port wine,
1½ gallons of the juice of elder-berries,
3 quarts of brandy,
1½ ounces of cochineal.
This will produce nine gallons and a half.
Bruise the cochineal very fine, and put it with the brandy into a stone bottle; let it remain at least a fortnight, shaking it well once or twice a day; at the end of that time to procure the cider, and put five gallons into a nine gallon cask, add to it the elder juice and port wine, then the brandy and cochineal. Take the remaining gallon of cider to rinse out the bottle that contained the brandy; and lastly, pour it into the cask, and bung it down very close, and in six weeks it will be fit for bottling.