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Wine, Apricot

Take ten gallons of river-water and boil it for half an hour; then set it to cool in clean vessel. Take forty-five pounds of ripe apricots, cut them into thick slices, and put them with the juice into the water, adding twenty-five pounds of the best loaf sugar. Stir well, cover closely, and leave till the following day; then boil the fruit and liquid together, stir in the whites of eight eggs well beaten, and take off the scum as it rises. When the liquor is clear and the fruit reduced to a pulp, press, strain through a fine sieve into a cooler, add the kernels, and stir well. Spread good yeast on both sides of a slice of toast, and when the liquor is at the proper warmth work it well two days; strain it through a jelly-bag into the cask, put on the bung lightly, and let the liquor work over, keeping the cask full. When it has done fermenting, add two quarts of French brandy and two ounces of white sugar-candy. Put in the bung, fasten it well, keep the liquor for twelve months, and then bottle it. It must remain a year or more in bottle, for apricot wine being very rich is improved greatly by age.