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Wine, Elderberry

The elderberry is well suited to the production of wine. The juice contains a considerable quantity of the principle necessary for a vigorous fermentation, and its beautiful colour imparts a rich tint to the wine made from it. It is, however, deficient in sweetness, and sugar must be added to it. The following is an approved recipe:--Take one gallon of ripe elderberries and put them into about half the quantity of water till they burst, beating them frequently with a stick. Strain the liquor, and return it to the copper. To produce eighteen gallons of wine, twenty gallons of this liquor are required, and for whatever quantity the liquor falls short of this, water must be added to make it up. Boil this along with fifty-six pounds of coarse moist sugar for half an hour, and it is to be fermented in the usual manner when sufficiently cooled, and then it is to be tunned or put into the cask. Put now into a muslin bag a pound and a half of ginger bruised, a pound of allspice, two ounces of cinnamon, and four to six ounces of hops; suspend the bag with the spice in the cask by a string not long enough to let it touch the bottom; let the liquor work in the cask for a fortnight, and fill up in the usual way. The wine will be fit to tap in two months, and is not improved by keeping like many other wines. Elderberries alone may be used.