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Elderberry Wine

Take quite ripe berries, and after stripping them from the stalks, steep them for five or six days in a tub of water, pressing them frequently during the time. Squeeze out the juice, and pass it through a fine sieve into the vessel in which it is to be boiled; add to each gallon three pounds of good brown sugar, and to every four gallons half a pound of ginger, two ounces of cloves, and an ounce or more of allspice. Boil for rather more than half an hour, then pour the wine into a tub or open cask, put with it some yeast on a piece of toast, and cover it over to work for four of five days, at the end of which time skim and remove it to the cask to ferment. The vent-peg must be loose until the fermentation has ceased, when the cask may be tightly closed, and the wine, after two months' rest, will be good, but better a month or two later. A quart of brandy poured into the barrel when it is about to be sealed up will greatly improve the wine.