Any minute now Christmas carols and advertisements are about to start booming from your radio and
television sets and jump off newspaper pages.
Are you ready?
Well, to give you a jump-start we've got tips and
information on how to make homemade wines and liqueurs for the season of partying and entertaining.
Orange Liqueur
12 oranges (include 2 Seville
or sour oranges)
3 lbs. granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups rum
METHOD
1. Wash, dry and peel oranges thinly.
2. Squeeze and strain juice.
3. Put the peel and sugar in alternate layers in an earthenware or glass jar.
4. Add rum.
5. Cover the jar tightly and leave in a warm place for about three weeks, shaking the mixture occasionally.
6. Strain off the liquid.
7. Bottle and cork well.
Serves 18-20
TIP: This liqueur improves with age.
Rice Wine
1/2 lb. paddy rice (unshelled rice)
Peel or zest from 1 orange
1/4 lb. raisins
1/4 lb. prunes
2 lbs. clear (dark) sugar
1/4 yeast cake or quarter pack
of dried yeast
1/2 of an orange, sliced and peeled
2 quarts water, boiled and cooled
METHOD
1. Wash rice.
2. Add peel from one orange.
3. Place in jar with other ingredients.
4. Set aside for 1 month.
5. Strain and bottle.
Yields 3 bottles.
TIP: Shelled rice may be used if paddy rice is unavailable. Before bottling rinse bottles with proof rum.
Ginger Wine
1/4 lb. green ginger
4 lbs. dark sugar
4 qts. water, boiled & cooled to 110ºF
2 tsps. dried yeast
1/2 ozs. mace
METHOD
1. Crush ginger and put into jar.
2. Add all other ingredients and
leave for 21 days.
3 Strain and bottle.
Yields approx. 4 quart bottles
-Enid Donaldson-Mignotte
The following recipes provided by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC).
Orange Wine
1 doz. large sweet oranges
2 lbs. sugar
1/2 oz. yeast
12 cloves
1/4 lb. raisins
4 pints water
2 ozs. cinnamon
METHOD
1. Peel oranges and extract juice.
2. Add sugar, yeast, and water to juice. Put in a jar and stir well.
3. Add the peel of two oranges and remove after two days. On the second day, add spice and cloves.
4. After two weeks, strain, heat, but do not boil. Cool and bottle.
This wine improves
with age.
Pimento Liqueur
1 quart ripe pimento berries
1 pint lime juice
3 bottles proof rum
(26 ozs. each)
3 quarts water
4 ozs. cinnamon sticks
6 lbs. brown sugar
METHOD
1. Bruise berries and place with rum and lime juice in a jar.
2. Cover and leave for three days.
3. Boil water, sugar, and cinnamon for about 10 minutes to make a thin syrup.
4. Strain liquid from berries, add rum mixture to syrup.
Cool, strain and bottle.
Wine
know-hows
TYPES OF WINES
Three types of homemade wines can be made dry, sweet and sparkling.
DRY WINE
In a dry wine, the process of fermentation uses all the sugar two to two and a half pounds of sugar to each gallon of the liquid to be fermented is usually enough.
SWEET WINE
A sweet wine demands three to three and three-quarter pounds of sugar to a gallon. The excess sugar gives the wine its sweetness.
Both dry and sweet wines are bottled after fermentation has ceased.
SPARKLING WINE
Sparkling wines are bottled just before fermentation ends. The process is completed in the bottle, which necessitates the corks being wired on.
TIPS:
A dry wine containing too little sugar will be flat and lacking in flavour.
Sweet wines with too much sugar will be syrupy. It's essential to use the correct proportion of sugar given in the recipes. Too much sugar may also hamper fermentation, leaving you with a flop on your hands.
It is important that all fruits or roots used to make wine should be sound. The fruit shoule not be overripe. If you're picking them yourself, choose a dry, sunny day.
The longer they're kept, the better they taste. Ageing helps the wine to lose its first harsh flavour and to develop smoothness and bouquet.
Acid in the form of lemon juice, for example are added to some wine recipes to provide freshness and a mild sharpness.
Brandy is also often added after fermentation, to give strength, add a better quality and to reduce the tendency to sour. However, its addition must not be thought essential unless
specially advised.
Yeast is used where ferments are not present and can always be employed to hasten the process of fermentation.
Brewers' yeast is preferable to bakers' compressed yeast, but either can be used.
Yeast is always added when the liquid is lukewarm about 70 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and if it is not added on toast it is better to mix it with a little of the liquid to be fermented and then add it to the whole.
If there is any doubt about the quantity or the quality of the yeast, err on the side of caution and use less rather than more.
FERMENTATION
It is important to ensure that the casks or jars are filled to the brim. Some of the liquid to be fermented should be kept for refilling. As wine ferments, it spills through the opening. The container must be refilled to the brim or the wine may turn sour if the air reaches the wide surface.
A tray should be put under the vessel during fermentation in order to catch the scum while the wine is working. You'll know it's working by the overflow of bubbly liquid. The process will be completed when the bubbling stops usually four to six weeks, depending on the nature of the wine.
Casks or jars should be loosely covered during fermentation to allow liquid to escape with as
little air as possible getting in. Wide mouthed jars, if they are used, could be covered with a stiff paper tied down with a small slit in it to allow the excess liquid to escape.
Fermentation is carried on in a warm room and at an even temperature varying between 65 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the latter being the best. If it is slow with few bubbles, it means that the temperature is too low. If the bubbling is excessive, and is more like a froth, the vessel should be moved to a cooler place. When all signs of fermentation have disappeared, the vessel should be bunged or corked tightly. If air gets into it the process will be found in detail under the three headings of Fruit Wines, Root Wines and Flower Wines.
BRILLIANCE
All homemade wines should be clear and brilliant. To get this brilliance
1: Carefully strain and filter after fermentation:
2: Do not use metal filters, they cause clouding and will spoil the colour.
3: Use a hair sieve on which three thickness of chemists' filter paper have been laid in such a way that they cover the bottom completely, allowing none of the wine to escape from around the sides. If the wine looks very cloudy, a two-inch layer of unmedicated cotton wool should be laid on top of the filter paper.
4: Where the wine has a tendency to be cloudy, icing glass may be used to clear the liquid instructions are usually included in recipes needing it.
CASKS
It is always best to give the cask a preliminary soaking before the wine is ready for
fermentation.
A new cask should be filled with salt and water and allowed to soak for a short time before it is used. A used cask should be soaked in plain water in a wooden tub. In any case, casks should be absolutely clean scald it thoroughly with boiling water, and after this has been cooled, empty the content and examine the inside with an electric torch.
If it has a sour or musty smell, clean it with lime. Break the lime into pieces (using one pound to a gallon of water) putting these into the cask and pour boiling water over them. Put in the bung, roll the cask for a few minutes and leave for several hours. Empty and scald with fresh water.
Empty casks should be corked tightly and stored in a cool place like a shed, where rain water cannot get into them. If there are signs of mould when they are wanted again, roll them about after pouring in a saucepan of boiling water and some clean, sharp gravel. Then scald them out again as directed above.
TIP
Never use soda to clean the cask.
