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Raisin Elder Wine

Crush eight quarts of ripe elderberries in a tub or earthen pan, mix with them five pounds of good moist sugar, and let them lie for twenty-four hours. Pick thirty-six pounds of good Malaga raisins from their stalks, stone and cut them small, and pour on them nine gallons of boiling soft water, then stir them well, and leave the vessel closely covered till the day following. Boil the elderberries and their juice half an hour, skimming well until quite clear, and strain it on to the raisins, stirring the mixture twenty minutes. Three days after this, strain the liquor well, put it into a ten-gallon cask upon the thin rinds of six lemons and two Seville oranges, and, leaving the bung out, let it ferment; minding to keep the cask filled up as it works out. When it has ceased hissing, put in a quart of brandy, and stop it up for two months; then rack it off into a clean vessel, filter the dregs, and fill the cask again, adding six ounces of sugar-candy and an ounce of isinglass dissolved in a little water. Secure the bung well, and let it stand ten months; then bottle it, seal the corks, and in six months more commence using it.