I remember I came to visit my grandfather for a zaimka. He was fond of folk medicine and homemade alcohol. In general, every time I left him, I took home some new recipe. It would seem that they have already tried everything, but each time my grandfather found something to surprise me with such an exotic one.
The story was sent by my subscriber Sergey.
How did the idea come about
Unfortunately, or fortunately, but I got to my grandfather just at the time when the harvesting of herbs, berries and other things was in full swing. Willy-nilly, I had to help. We didn’t get out of the woods for days. In a short time, I learned so many new plants that, it would seem, I could now compete with eminent botanists.
That day we went for rowan. I can’t say how many trees we picked, but in the end we got a lot of berries. We returned home only in the evening. Grandfather was busy with the fruits, and I, looking at their number, asked a simple question: “What are you going to do with all this?”
Grandfather looked at me as if I were insane and calmly replied: “Yes, a lot of things can be made from mountain ash. Do you want to make wine tomorrow? It will be ready for your next visit.”
Note! For wine, it is recommended to take freshly picked mountain ash, but frozen is also suitable.
I liked the idea. Maybe the reason for this was that I was just tired of climbing through the forest all day and was ready to agree to any adventure, most importantly, not today. Well, quite a bit I was driven by professional curiosity.
Ingredients
Grandfather did not postpone the execution of the idea on the back burner and woke me up very early the next morning. As I expected, wine was made not only from the mountain ash itself. We needed additional ingredients, for which we had to go to the city.
How grandfather drove his old UAZ is a different story, however, we rushed to the store faster than Formula 1 racers could probably do. To make wine, we needed to buy:
- 3 kg of sugar for 45 rubles. per kg.
- 150 gr. raisins – 120 rubles. for a pack.
Well, basically, that’s all. In addition, 4 liters of water and 10 kg of rowan berries were needed for wine. We already had all this.
Collected a lot.
Note! Crushed grapes can be used instead of raisins.
Preparation
We got home before dark. Grandfather quickly laid out the purchases in cupboards and pantries. As you correctly understand, we did not limit ourselves to acquiring ingredients for home-made alcohol and bought a lot of all sorts of things.
As soon as all the products were in their places, we moved on to making wine. The process was not as difficult as I initially thought:
- Even the previous evening, the mountain ash was cleared of any twigs, leaves and other debris.
- We put the berries in a saucepan and poured boiling water over them. After 20 minutes, the water was drained. The process was repeated twice.
- Long crushed mountain ash with a rolling pin.
- From the slurry that we got in the end, we squeezed out all the juice, if possible.
- The pulp was placed in a saucepan and poured with hot water. Mixed and left to cool.
- 1,5 kg of sugar, two handfuls of raisins were added to the pan, and then it was all well mixed.
- They covered the container with gauze and left it in the pantry for 3 days. Once a day, grandfather stirred the wort.
- After this time, the contents of the pan were filtered into the fermentation tank. The rest of the sugar was added there. A water seal was installed on the neck.
Note! It is better to fill the fermentation tank only 2/3 of the volume. The rest serves as a place for the formation of foam, etc.
- The container was left to infuse for 3 weeks, all in the same pantry.
- As soon as grandfather said that the wine had completely fermented, we poured the liquid into a clean container, which was then tightly closed with a lid.
In the process.
This was the end of the preparation of rowan wine for me. It was necessary to return home. Seeing me on the bus, my grandfather said that I should come in 4 months. They say then I will taste the creation of my own hands.
Result
And now the allotted time has passed. Grandfather again at breakneck speed rushes me in his UAZ along the forest bumps. Here is a familiar house. A bottle of rowan wine and a good snack are already waiting for us on the table.
Immediately drew attention to the color of alcohol. Yellow, or rather, even closer to amber. The taste of the wine turned out to be sweet and sour, with tart notes. The smell was appropriate.
In general, not in vain we worked so much time. I liked the rowan wine. There was something in it that I had not seen in store-bought alcohol. What is the most unusual wine you have ever tasted?
*Alcohol abuse is bad for your health!