506. Sparkling Gooseberry Wine

Forty pounds of large, but still green gooseberries are mashed in a tub, infused in eighteen quarts of lukewarm water; stir thoroughly; decant the water, and squeeze the fruits through a sieve, while you mix it again with four or five quarts of water.

Dissolve thirty pounds of loaf-sugar, and three and one-third ounces of cremor tartari in the juice, and add water to have altogether fifty quarts of fluid: cover the tub with a cloth, and let it stand undisturbed two days in a temperature not below 60° F.

Then pour the wine into a cask containing exactly 45 or 46 quarts, and keep the remaining fluid for the purpose of filling up afterward during fermentation; when you can no longer hear the hissing noise of fermentation, bung, but make a hole beside the bung with a gimlet, closed by a small cork, which is to be taken out every other day to avoid bursting. After ten or twelve days cork solidly; place the cask in a cool cellar, and let it lie till the end of December; decant the wine into a new cask, and clear with pale white glue in the proportion of one ounce to one quart of wine.

In spring bottle at the time when the gooseberries of the same kind begin to bloom; fasten your corks with wire.

507. Honey Wine A La Russe

Refine four pounds of honey, and mix it with two pounds of pulverized sugar, the rind of four lemons rubbed on sugar, and the juice of six lemons; after cooling mix it well with eight quarts of cold well-water; pour the fluid into a cask, bung it, and put it in the cellar. After a fortnight decant, bottle, cork, and seal, and let the bottles lie a few weeks before using.

508. Lemon Wine

Boil six quarts of water with four pounds of lump-sugar to the consistency of syrup; peel five lemons, and put the rind in a large, clean pot; pour the boiling syrup over the rind; when the syrup is cool add the juice of ten lemons, a piece of toast covered with a spoonful of yeast, and let it stand two days, when fermentation begins. Then remove the rind; pour the fluid into a cask which must be completely filled; let the wine ferment, and cork when the fermentation is complete. After three months bottle and use.

509. Orange Wine

Boil twenty-eight pounds of loaf-sugar in thirty-two quarts of water, with the whites and the cracked shells of four eggs, the whites being beaten to foam; skim well; let the concoction get cool; add the juice of ninety bitter oranges; mix all very well; filter; add half a pound of yeast put on toast, let stand for twenty-four hours; fill into a cask, add one quart of fine brandy. After fermentation is complete, bung well; after three months decant into another cask, add another quart of brandy, let it lie for a year, bottle, and let the bottles lie for three months before using.

510. Pear Champane

Juicy and sweet pears are mashed; press the juice out, and fill it into a small cask; cover the bung-hole with a piece of muslin, and let it stand for a few days. The juice begins now to ferment, and to foam considerably; after the fermentation is complete fill into another cask, bung well, and let it lie in a cellar for six weeks; after this fill the wine into bottles, fasten the corks with wire, and you may use it after three or four more weeks.