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Wine, Coltsfoot

Take ten gallons of soft-or river-water, and boil with it for three-quarters of an hour twenty-six pounds of moist sugar and the whites of ten eggs well beaten, skimming well all the time. Pour the liquor boiling hot on three pecks of fresh-gathered colts-foot flowers and ten pounds of Malaga raisins stoned and cut small; cover the vessel up close, and let them infuse three days, stirring three times daily. Then make two gallons of the liquor scalding hot, stir it well into the rest, and add six or seven table-spoonfuls of good yeast; keep it well mixed and covered up, until it has worked freely, then strain it into your cask upon three ounces of the best ginger bruised and the thin rinds of six Seville oranges, and let it remain open, covering the bunghole with a tile until the wine has ceased fermenting. Add three half-pints of French brandy and a bottle of strong Madeira, stop the cask up securely, and keep the wine twelve months; then bottle it, and drink in six months more. This is a valuable wine for its medicinal properties.