Rhubarb Wine
INGREDIENTS. - To every 5 lbs. of rhubarb pulp allow 1 gallon of cold spring water; to every gallon of liquor allow 3 lbs. of loaf sugar, 1/2 oz. of isinglass, the rind of 1 lemon.
Gather the rhubarb about the middle of May; wipe it with a wet cloth, and, with a mallet, bruise it in a large wooden tub, or other convenient means. When reduced to a pulp, weigh it, and to every 5 lbs. add 1 gallon of cold spring water; let these remain for 3 days, stirring 3 or 4 times a day; and on the fourth day, press the pulp through a hair sieve; put the liquor into a tub, and to every gallon put 3 lbs. of loaf sugar, stir in the sugar until it is quite dissolved, and add the lemon-rind; RICE BISCUITS. let the liquor remain, and, in 4, 5, or 6 days, the fermentation will begin to subside, and a crust or head will be formed, which should be skimmed off, or the liquor drawn from it when the crust begins to crack or separate. Put the wine into a cask, and if, after that, it ferments, rack it off into another cask, and in a fortnight stop it down. If the wine should have lost any of its original sweetness, add a little more loaf sugar, taking care that the cask is full. Bottle it off in February or March, and in the summer it should be fit to drink. It will improve greatly by keeping; and, should a very brilliant colour be desired, add a little currant-juice.
SEASONABLE. Make this about the middle of May.
Rice. This grass is chiefly grown in the East, but it is also cultivated in the Southern parts of Europe. It is said to be the chief food of one third of the human race, and it is a fact that more of it is grown and consumed than any other cereal.
There is a great deal of starch in rice, but it is lacking, as will be seen by the following analysis of one pound, in flesh-forming qualities. It is useful as a food when employed with others possessing the latter quality, such as meat or eggs.
In cooking rice the best method is steaming, as by boiling it, in the water a great part of the constituents in which it is deficient is lost. The husk of rice is largely used in the adulteration of many foods.
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF 1 LB. OF RICE. ... ...
Water Albumenoids Starch, &c.
Fat Mineral matter ... ... ... ... oz. grs. 2 147 ... 1 87 12 133 ... 0 ... 35 ... ... ... 0 35 ... ... ... 16 0
A Victorian country wine, made by pulping rhubarb rather than juicing it and letting the wild yeasts on the fruit and in the air do the work. The proportions still hold; the handling assumes knowledge that a modern reader should not have to guess at.
- Leaves and crowns are not usedOnly the stalks go into the tub. Rhubarb leaves carry oxalic acid at levels high enough to cause serious poisoning, and any leaf blade or top of the crown must be cut away and discarded before the stalks are bruised.
- Gallons are imperialAn imperial gallon is 160 fl oz, about 4.5 litres, roughly a fifth more than a US gallon. Scaling by the US gallon while keeping 3 lb of sugar will give a noticeably sweeter, stronger wine.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar sold in cones or hard loaves, broken up as needed. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute, weight for weight.
- IsinglassA fining agent made from sturgeon swim bladders, used to drop the haze out of a finished wine. The quantity given here is very small and the method never says when to add it; finings are stirred into the cask after fermentation has stopped, not at the start. Modern equivalents are gelatin, bentonite or a proprietary fining.
- Spring waterClean, untreated water was what was wanted. Modern tap water may be chlorinated or chloraminated, and both inhibit yeast; filtered or bottled water avoids the question. Standing water uncovered overnight will drive off chlorine, but not chloramine.
- Wild fermentationNo yeast is added; the recipe relies on whatever is on the fruit and in the tub. It reckons four, five or six days before the fermentation begins to subside and a crust or head has formed. A packet of wine yeast, with a crushed Campden tablet the day before to knock back the wild flora, gives a more predictable result and a cleaner flavour.
- A hair sieveA sieve woven from horsehair, fine enough to hold back pulp. A nylon straining bag or a colander lined with muslin does the same job, and squeezing the bag extracts more juice than pressing through a sieve.
- "Stop it down"The single instruction that matters. Bunging the cask tight while fermentation is still active builds pressure; the same applies to bottling in February. Wait until the wine has been still and clear for weeks, and check with a hydrometer that the gravity has stopped falling, before sealing anything.
- Yield and timingFive pounds of stalks and a gallon of water give roughly a gallon of finished wine, about six 75 cl bottles. Pulped in May, bottled in late winter, drinkable the following summer and better after a year.
Rhubarb reached English gardens as a medicinal plant long before it was eaten, and only became a common kitchen crop in the first half of the nineteenth century, a shift often attributed to cheaper sugar making its sourness manageable. By Mrs Beeton's day it was the earliest fruit of the year in most gardens, ready in quantity while the orchard fruits were still weeks away, which is exactly why a mid-May pulping suited the household calendar. Home-brewed country wines from rhubarb, cowslip, elderflower, parsnip and gooseberry were a standard part of the well-run Victorian household's provisioning: they used a glut that would otherwise spoil, they cost little beyond sugar, and they filled the gap between the tax-heavy imported wines and beer. The suggestion of a little currant juice for colour is a reminder that rhubarb wine ferments out almost water-pale.