496. English Apricot Wine

Boil twelve pounds of ripe, stoneless apricots with one pound of lump-sugar, half an hour, in twelve quarts of water; add one-fourth of the peeled and roughly mashed kernels, and let the fluid get cool in a well-covered vessel. After cooling, add, while stirring, a tablespoonful of beer-yeast; let it ferment three or four days. Then fill the juice into a very well-cleaned cask, and add, when the fermentation is complete, a bottle of Rhine wine; let the cask rest for half a year, fill the contents into bottles, and let them lie a year before using.

497. Bilberry Wine

Boil three pints of water with four quarts of selected bilberries for twenty minutes, strain the juice through canton flannel, cover, and let it stand for half an hour; then fill it carefully into another pot; let it boil once more a few seconds with twelve ounces of sugar, one-eighth of an ounce of ground cinnamon, and one-tenth of an ounce of ground cloves; bottle after cooling, seal the bottles, and put them in the cellar.

498. English Blackberry Wine

Put any large quantity of ripe and dry blackberries in a large stone jar, pour over it boiling water, and place it over night in a tepid oven; squeeze the berries thoroughly in the morning, strain through a fine sieve, and let the juice ferment a fortnight; then add to each four quarts of juice one pound of pulverized sugar, and half a pint of brandy or rum; fill the fluid into a cask, bung well, and let it lie in a cellar a few months before using.

499. Cider

Cider is chiefly produced in large quantities by pressing apples with an addition of water; yet one may obtain smaller quantities for the family use without too great trouble, by grating fine, juicy peeled apples on a grater; filter the juice through a cloth, pour it into stone jars, and add some roasted apples to hasten fermentation. When, after a couple of days, a skin appears on the juice, fermentation is complete; remove the skin, bottle the cider, and keep it in a cool place.

Larger quantities of cider are obtained by mashing good, juicy apples; press them, and fill the juice into a small Rhine wine cask. Place this cask in a cool room upon a skid, when the juice will soon begin to ferment; fermentation will take about a fortnight; during this time remove with a clean piece of linen all stuffs thrown to the surface; as soon as fermentation is done fill the cask up with water, bung it well, and let it lie in the cellar half a year; decant it into another cask, let it lie for another two months, and fill into bottles.

500. Currant Wine

Collect the perfectly ripe currants on a sunny day, clean, and put them in a big earthen or wooden pot, and mash them with a wooden masher; let ferment in a cellar, and strain through a hair-sieve with a wooden spoon; never use your hands; decant into a little cask; add to each quart of juice half a pound of powdered sugar, and to each twelve quarts of juice one quart of brandy or arrack; let the wine stand six weeks, bottle, and use after two months.