Monday 14 May 2012

Magpie Monday - Homemade wines & drinks ...

I thought I'd add my two pence to this weeks Magpie Monday (well 50p actually)

We've been making our own wines for a couple of years now, and generally we have had some good drinkable wines, some more alcoholic than others, so far we've made blackberry,apple,plum, with shop bought plums, and with foraged plums and I've also made ginger wine.

Although making wine is easy enough it never hurts to have a book or two, and I figured that the recipe book for wines and drinks I noticed in one of our charity shops was worth it's 50p price tag, it's and old-ish book, but it has some very interesting recipes in it.

The book -

Originally published in 1963 (I think)

It has some very good stuff in it, including a Mead recipe, which I'm eager to try, it also has some what might be considered odd recipes, like Beetroot wine, along with other types of veg, like celery and spiced carrot, not sure if I want to try them to be honest.

Beetroot wine (I wasn't making it up) - 


I'm not a fan of Beetroot.

It's a good book if you enjoy a bit of foraging as well, these a good and easy to make recipe for Rosehip syrup which is very good for staving of colds in winter as Rosehips have a very high vitamin c content.

Rosehip syrup - 


Will be trying this.


And it's not all alcoholic drinks either, it has some stuff that kids will love, mainly involving chocolate, things like the chocolate marshmallow float and loads of others, the book also offers some simple tips for decorating glasses and of course good glass keeping practices.

The Marshmallow float - 


I'm not a fan of chocolate, but I'm liking the sound of this.

So all in all for 50p there's a lot in this book to keep me busy for a while.


Thanks for reading.




Me and My Shadow

9 comments:

  1. My husband has been making wine for several years. Like you, he's used mostly known fruits, like apple, blackberry, and pear. However, he has made pumpkin cranberry and jalapeno wine as well. Enjoy your book, and if you make any of the weird wines let us know.

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    1. I love making wine, there's an odd satisfaction to it, almost like alchemy or something.

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  2. Great book, hope to read some of the tastings from it in the future.

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    1. I'm waiting for some sun because some of the summer type cocktails and other drinks look like fun.

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  3. I'm sure my parents used to have that book, it seems strangely familiar.

    I've always fancied wine making but I'm put off by the sciencey bit - is it not complicated?

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    1. It's not as complicated as you might think, although like a lot of things it depends on how in-depth you want to go.

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  4. I haven't seen anything like that since the 1980's .. Gosh Well done you x

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    1. Thanks, sometimes the old ways of doing things are still the best, hence buying the book :-)

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  5. Great find - hope you have a lot of fun with it :-)

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