Home › The Principles of Cookery › Red Champagne, British

Red Champagne, British

Take forty quarts of ripe green gooseberries, crush them in a tub, pour on them ten gallons of soft water that has been well boiled and become cold, add three pounds of sliced beetroots that have been boiled, without breaking their skins, for twenty minutes, stir well ten minutes, and leave, covered up, to steep four days, stirring well three times daily. Strain the liquor, and filter it through a flannel bag into a cask; add thirty pounds of best loaf sugar in small lumps, two ounces of best ginger bruised, the thin rinds of four lemons, and an ounce of best isinglass dissolved in a quart of the liquor. Leave the bung out till the fermentation has ceased, then add a quart of brandy, put in the bung, and secure it with paper and sand. Keep the wine in a cool cellar twelve months, then put it into champagne bottles, wire the corks, and seal them. It will be in high perfection in six months more, and is exceedingly fine.