CHAPTER FOUR
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The Home Brewer
ALMOST ALL FRUITS, EDIBLE BERRIES, flowers and root vegetables can be made into either wine or beer – which is handy. From hedgerow wines to ‘turbo’ cider, honey mead to real ale, home brewing is the perfect way to share self-sufficiency with friends. Even using a homebrew kit, a glass of beer or a bottle of wine is still cheaper than the average chocolate bar. Once the basic methods outlined in this chapter have been mastered, it is entirely possible to venture off the beaten track and start experimenting with things you can grow at home or easily forage, bringing the price down even lower. But even if you prefer to use a shop-bought kit, it will still cost you a fraction of the price charged at the shops. In fact, once all the equipment has been acquired, a tipple can cost next to nothing. But the cost is only one small reason why people brew beer and wine at home. The major reason is taste, and taste is the single factor that has bounced the concept of homemade wines and beer from the slightly seedy practice of men with beards in garden sheds to a fashionable, bright and trendy hobby that is simple, fun, cheap and immensely rewarding.
Just about any beer on the shelf, any red wine, any white wine can be copied, with exciting results. A cool crisp Chablis, a dark red Merlot or a lively lager can all be recreated in your kitchen. Today it is easier to make really great wine and beer than it has ever been before. The kits for home brewing have improved beyond recognition, largely because yeast has improved beyond recognition. The equipment is now less clunky and the recipes perfected. Self-sufficient wine and beer have also improved, largely, it has to be recognized, due to the Internet and the ease with which people can now share information. Things like dandelion wine and stinging-nettle beer have been stripped down, tweaked and made gorgeous. Mead, cider and perry are both exciting and moreishly drinkable.
The law
With very few exceptions (some dry states in America, for instance) it is perfectly legal to brew your own wine and beer, but it is illegal to sell it, as no duty will have been paid. As long as you use it only for your own consumption and never charge anybody who might share it with you, then you should be fine. However, you cannot distil any alcoholic drink. On this, there are no exceptions, and the reasoning behind it is far more to do with safety than finance, because it is quite possible for an amateur to unwittingly create alcohols that are unsafe and even life-threateningly dangerous.
Getting started
The beauty of home brewing is that it can be done in any kitchen any time of the year. The first thing to decide is what’s your tipple – beer or wine? For someone just starting out, it’s probably best to generalize and go for standards rather than specifics, so if you fancy a red wine, plump for a perfectly acceptable ‘house’ style, which is going to be fairly quick to produce and you know you’ll be happy with the results, and wait until you are a little more confident before tackling something more challenging and hunting down a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. In this respect home brewing is very much like making cheese: starting off with ricotta and working your way up to a Cheddar- or Brie-type cheese. Of course if you are already specializing, then perhaps this will help to broaden your knowledge of some of the other aspects of brewing, such as mead, cider and perry, or tempt the wine connoisseur into dabbling with beer (or vice versa, of course).
This chapter examines the basic methods and processes involved in home brewing red and white wine, beer, lager, mead, cider and perry, with the emphasis firmly on self-sufficiency. Where possible, all the ingredients are home-produced, such as apples for cider, pears for perry and honey for mead. If you do not have access to these ingredients, then it may mean a trip to the shops, or what’s even better is if you can trade whatever produce you do have with someone who has an orchard or a beehive. With a few exceptions, most of the equipment you need will probably be lurking in your kitchen. For anything that’s missing, check online.
MAKING BEER
In medieval Britain the water was so dangerous to drink that everyone stuck to drinking wine and ale, and it is estimated that an average man living in this period would have consumed about 4.5 litres/9 pints of ale every day, starting with just over ½ litre/1 pint at breakfast and continuing to drink throughout the working day. Luckily a clean water supply was eventually given priority, as today’s employers prefer a more sober approach from their workforce, being of the opinion that people tend to work harder when they’re not sloshed.
Beer is simple to make at home and can be ready in a matter of days, or, for a really exquisite drink, can be left to mature for a year or more. The two main forms of beer are ale and lager. Ale is the easiest and fastest to create of the two as it is brewed from top-fermenting yeast with a relatively short, room-temperature fermentation, whereas lager is the opposite: it is brewed from bottom-fermenting yeast over a longer period in cooler conditions. Ale uses hops, which often grow wild or in a garden using a tree as a support – so you can do some foraging for them.
EQUIPMENT FOR MAKING A SIMPLE ALE OR LAGER
Fermenting bucket
Plastic paddle
Sterilizer
40 × 570ml/1 pint bottles, along with caps and capping tool, or recycled flip-top bottles
Plastic siphoning tubs
Kit of your choice
Making lager from a kit
Kits are simple and make on average 23 litres/40 pints/24½ quarts of pretty much foolproof lager. All you have to do is bring 3.4 litres/6 pints/3½ quarts water to the boil, siphon it into a fermenting bin, mix in the contents of the kit along with any additional sugars, fill to the 23-litre/40-pint/24½-quart mark and that’s it. Leave it to one side until it’s ready to drink and then invite 40 friends around for a drink. As long as you follow the instructions in the kit, it really is difficult to go wrong.
Different kits will make slightly different beers, and once you get the knack it is entirely possible to customize your own version. As soon as you start tweaking it to produce something that’s your own, then you can pull away from the kits and start mixing and matching by buying the individual components separately.
Making ale
The variations in making ale are as numerous as those in wine, so the trick is to start with a basic recipe and then adjust it to suit your own taste. Before you bottle your beer, make certain that your siphon and the bottles have all been sterilized in a solution specifically for the job. Use thick glass bottles with lids that can withstand a lively beer, and don’t be tempted to use recycled screw tops, as the seal often fails, although recycled flip-top bottles are ideal.
Basic ale
This method is one step on from using a kit and encourages buying just a few bits of equipment. Note that if your tap water has a tang of chlorine or metal, you need to add a dash of salt and boil it first so it doesn’t affect the flavour of the beer. For a fuller beer, increase the malt extract by as much as half again. Leave this ale to ferment for 3 weeks, when it will be ready to drink, or leave it to mature and mellow for months (if you can resist it).
25g/1oz hops (increase or decrease for a milder or stronger flavour)
450g/1lb malt extract
225g/8oz/1 cup plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar, plus 8–9 tsp for the bottles
juice of ½ lemon
pinch of salt
1 heaped tsp dry ale yeast
Leaving to one side a small portion of the hops, put the rest in a large saucepan with 3.5 litres/6 pints/3¾ quarts water and bring the whole thing to a rolling boil for 1 hour. Pour 1.2 litres/2 pints/5 cups water into a separate pan, add the malt extract and sugar and stir over a low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. This mixture is known as the wort. When the hops have finished boiling, strain the mixture into the wort and leave to cool. Pour 570ml/1 pint/2½ cups water through the drained hops into the wort to extract the last vestiges of flavour. Add the lemon juice, salt, yeast and remaining hops and stir continuously until everything has amalgamated. Cover and stand somewhere warm for 3 days.
Take a ladle and skim off the foam, then leave to stand for another 5 days before giving the beer a thorough stirring. Allow the sediment to settle over the next 24 hours, then fill nine 570ml/1 pint bottles to the neck, at least 2.5cm/1in from the top. (You may not have enough beer to fill all the bottles to the top.) Add 1 tsp sugar to each full bottle (and proportionally less to a non-full one) before securing the top.
Mixed-leaf beer
The really self-sufficient homebrew beer is made from scratch. Before hops were taken as the preferred flavouring, people would make light beer from any plants and leaves they could find. This is a modified version of one of the oldest known beer recipes in existence. It makes a light, refreshing drink that is ideal for a warm summer’s afternoon. If you have trouble collecting all the suggested leaves at once, you can use just the stinging nettle or dandelion leaves.
¼ bucket mixed leaves, including some of the following: dandelion, stinging nettles, hop, a young twig or two of spruce and a little sorrel
25g/1oz cream of tartar
680g/1½lb/scant 3½ cups granulated sugar
¼ tsp dried yeast
Rinse the leaves and leave to drip dry. Put in a large saucepan, cover with about 5.75 litres/1¼ gallons/6 quarts water and bring up to boiling point. Boil for about 15 minutes before straining the liquid and discarding the leaves and any twigs. Return the liquid to the pan and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and add the cream of tartar and the sugar, mixing until thoroughly dissolved. Take off the heat and leave to cool. When it’s just warm, add the yeast and stir in. Cover with a tea towel and leave for 4 days, then uncover and carefully scoop off any scum without upsetting the beer below. Siphon into bottles, leaving the sediment behind. Chill and drink.
WINE-MAKING
Making wine at home is simple, and it has been practised for the last 6,000 years. With all this practice we should be pretty good at it, and the truth is, we are. The kits available online and at speciality shops produce drinks that nobody would be ashamed of, with simple instructions that are easy to follow, and the speed with which they work is astounding and will have you reaching for a glass within a week. They produce exciting and stylish red and white wines, and if you want to produce a safe drink from a kit then you should be encouraged to do so.
However, there are also many wines that you can produce self-sufficiently, and it’s when you start dabbling in these that things get interesting. If you are the type of person who orders the taster menu in a restaurant, takes a shot from the bottle of liqueur with a pickled scorpion in the bottom in a Spanish bar or makes stinging nettle soup and tries it, then maybe you should consider making wine from scratch.
What is wine?
Wine is a combination of four things: water, sugar, yeast and flavourings. Sugar is added to the water and warmed up to make a lovely environment in which the live yeast can breed – a process known as fermentation. Much of the balance in creating a great wine is to do with the right proportion of sugar to yeast: too much sugar and the yeast can’t use it all up and the wine tastes syrupy; too little sugar and you get the opposite effect, with a yeasty flavour. When the correct amount of sugar is used, the yeast will turn half of it into alcohol and the rest into carbon dioxide, which bubbles away.
The vast majority of wine is produced by using grapes as the key flavouring, but there are many alternatives you can explore. Country wines flavoured with fruits, berries, root vegetables and flowers are surprisingly good, and with a little practice on your part they can easily be the equal of many commercial wines available and quite often a lot better.
Principles of wine-making
• Flavour is taken from a plant/vegetable/flower/berry.
• Sugar and yeast are added to the flavour and fermentation begins.
• After about 10 days, the liquid is strained into a fermentation demi-john fitted with an airlock, where it will sit happily fermenting for a few weeks.
• The top, clearer, wine is siphoned off (racked) into a new demijohn and left to sit again.
• When it’s ready, the wine is bottled.
EQUIPMENT
Large saucepan
Funnel
Demijohn
Airlock
Muslin cloth
Preparation
Before you start doing anything, the important thing is to create a good environment in which to work. Everything you use must be cleaned in a sterilizing solution, usually 1 Campden tablet per 4.5 litres/1 gallon/4¾ quarts water (maybe a teaspoon of citric acid, too, if you have any), which will be enough to inhibit bacteria from spoiling your wine. Use it before and after use on all your equipment, and to rinse out bottles and corks. (Avoid baking bottles in the oven or dipping them in boiling water to sterilize them, as this is not anywhere near as effective as a sterilizing solution.)
Getting started
Country wines draw their flavour from the countryside. It does not mean you have to live in the country to make them, any more than you have to live on a farm to produce a farmhouse loaf of bread, but you do need to have access to the ingredients. Ideally, you will be able to source them from your own vegetable plot, or perhaps forage for them. If neither of these options is viable, then you can, of course, buy the ingredients, perhaps from a farmers’ market to still give you that feeling that you are sourcing your wine ingredients straight from the countryside, though shop-bought produce will, of course, be fine.
When making jams and chutneys, it is perfectly acceptable to use second-quality fruit and vegetables, but to make wine, you need to select the best produce you have, discarding anything that looks bruised or iffy. Vegetables such as carrots, marrows, potatoes, parsnips and pea-pods should be scrubbed clean and chopped into chunks before being boiled in the relevant recipe. Leaves such as stinging nettles, parsley, cabbage and lettuce should be treated in the same way.
Flowers such as elderflower and dandelion produce very delicate, gentle wines, sometimes so delicate that many recipes call for the addition of dried fruit such as raisins, and the squeeze of a lemon for acid, to give the wine a little more body and character. To extract the gorgeous bouquet from any flowers that you want to impart into your wine, macerate them in warm water overnight before starting to make the wine.
Around March, when the sap is rising, it is possible to tap birch and silver birch trees, which can weep a good litre (2 pints) of sap in under a day (though if you do this, make certain that you plug the wound when you have finished or the tree will continue to weep and will eventually die). The sap can then be made into birch sap wine.
Speedy wine
This is a perfect recipe for anyone starting out on making wine because it’s one of the fastest wines possible to make, and the result is a good table wine with about 8 per cent ABV. Of course, the wine made here is very young and so the flavour hasn’t had much time to develop and mature, but it does pleasantly raise your eyebrows when you sip it. However, the longer you leave it, the better it gets. Store this wine in a cool place for 1 week before drinking, or leave to mature for 6–8 months.
450g/1lb/2¼ cups granulated sugar
225g/8oz dried malt extract
570ml/1 pint grape, pineapple or cranberry juice
1 tsp general-purpose wine yeast
Pour 2 litres/3½ pints/4¼ cups water into a large saucepan and heat gently while stirring in the sugar. In a separate container dissolve the malt extract in 250ml/9fl oz/1 cup tepid water. Add the juice, mix and siphon into a demijohn. Dissolve the yeast in 3 tbsp warm water and add to the wine. Top up with 2.25 litres/4 pints/2½ quarts water (to the neck of the demijohn). Shake the whole thing, fit an airlock and leave in a warm place to ferment.
Every day for 2 weeks make a point of picking up the demijohn and swirling it around to swish the sediment up into the body of the wine. Filter the wine through a muslin cloth placed in a funnel and return it to the demijohn with an airlock to sit in the warm for a couple more days. When fermentation is complete, with no more bubbles rising, siphon into bottles and seal.
Rose-petal wine
This wine has a slightly more complex flavour, and yet it is just so beautifully delicate at the same time, with a really summery floral scent. It takes about 6 months to be ready for drinking once bottled, but it’s well worth the wait. If you are patient enough, wait for 2 years before drinking it for the best results.
1kg/2¼lb/5 cups granulated sugar
2.75 litres/5 pints/12 cups rose petals
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp general-purpose wine yeast
Mix the sugar with 4.5 litres/1 gallon/4¾ quarts water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Tip in the rose petals and add the lemon juice, then remove from the heat and leave to cool. When the mixture is tepid, add the wine yeast and stir, then cover with a clean cloth and set aside. Stir once a day for a week, always covering in between times. Strain through a muslin cloth into a demijohn fitted with an airlock and leave somewhere warm for about 6 weeks to finish fermenting. Siphon into another demijohn with an airlock and keep for 6 months before bottling.
Jam wine
What better way to use up any old jams than to turn them into wine? Trawl through the pantry and store cupboard gathering all the old jars of jam and marmalade that you don’t want or that have gone sugary. This wine should be left for a year before you drink it, and will keep for several years.
6–7 jars of jam
1 tbsp dried yeast
1 tbsp granulated sugar
Shake the jars’ contents out into a fermenting bucket, add 4.5 litres/ 1 gallon/4¾ quarts boiling water and stir until it has all been amalgamated. Leave the mixture to cool to blood heat. Activate the yeast by mixing with the sugar and a little warm water, then add to the wine and stir well. Cover and leave in a warm place for 3–4 days, then siphon into a demijohn (beware of all the bits of fruit and pieces of peel within the mixture) with an airlock and leave for 6 weeks. Siphon into a clean demijohn with an airlock and leave until no more sediment is produced and the wine is clear. Siphon into bottles.
Pea-pod wine
This wine can be adapted for other vegetables, such as parsnips and beetroot. Just use the same weight of vegetables, and follow the method below. Store this wine for at least 6 months before tasting, though 1 year would be better. Drink within 3 years.
1.8kg/4lb pea pods
thinly pared rind and juice of 2 lemons
thinly pared rind and juice of 2 oranges
900g/2lb/4½ cups granulated white sugar
¼ tsp tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp general-purpose wine yeast
Bring 4.5 litres/1 gallon/4¾ quarts water to the boil, add the pea pods and citrus rinds and reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool to blood heat. Place the remaining ingredients in a separate pan or brewing bucket. Strain the pea-pod mixture into the sugar mixture and stir until the sugar has dissolved, then pour into a demijohn with an airlock. Leave for about 6 weeks, depending on the temperature, until it has stopped fermenting, before bottling.
Elderflower wine
It would not be correct for a section on country wines to end without a tribute to the queen of them all, elderflower wine. Leave this wine for at least 3 months before drinking, or, if you are patient, wait for 6 months, when it will be at its best.
425ml/¾ pint elderflower heads
225g/8oz/heaped 1½ cups raisins
1.6kg/3½lb/8 cups granulated sugar
juice of 3 lemons
1 tsp general-purpose wine yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp grape tannin
Bring 2.25 litres/½ gallon/2½ quarts water to the boil in a large saucepan and add the elderflower heads, raisins, sugar and lemon juice. Add a further 2.25 litres/½ gallon/2½ quarts water, mix well and leave to cool until tepid. Add the wine yeast, nutrient and grape tannin. Move the pan to a warm spot, cover with a clean cloth and leave to ferment for 4–5 days. Strain through a muslin cloth into a demijohn with an airlock and leave to ferment until the bubbling stops. When it’s clear, siphon again into a clean demijohn with an airlock. Two months later, siphon into bottles and store in a cool place.
CIDER
For purity and simplicity in a glass, there is nothing to match cider. After dealing with wine, beer and lager recipes, where there are processes to follow, and we need to add this, then add that, suddenly to be confronted with a drink that’s just pressed apple juice, and nothing else, feels … well it feels like it shouldn’t work. Where’s the yeast? Where’s the sugar? How can it possibly ferment?
The answer is that Mother Nature very kindly made us a completely natural brewing kit, and named it ‘apple’. Everything you need to brew cider is contained in that little round package. Within the cells of the skin are the wild yeasts. They react with the sweetness of the apple, the natural sugars, and during the course of fermentation turn the sugar to alcohol. Nothing added, nothing taken away – it’s just so beautifully simple.
But where would the fun be if there were not a few challenges for the cider maker along the way? The principal obstacle is how to extract the apple juice. Apples are a hard fruit, and so the amount of pressure needed to press the juice out is high. This is why fruit presses, or cider presses, are constructed for the job. You can buy presses, but they don’t come up for sale very often, and when they do the cost is normally too great to justify the purchase. The solution is, as usual in the self-sufficient world, to make your own. See my design opposite, and also the apple press on www.cider.org.uk/millprss.htm.
The next dilemma centres on the apples themselves. Different apple strains will alter the taste: sharp apples will produce a sharp cider, and sweet apples a sweet cider. The best ciders are a blend of both, and a medium to dry cider can be obtained by mixing two parts sharp apples to one part sweet.
How to make homemade cider
If you have access to an orchard or can get out to one, then this is by far your best option, but if not head for a market or greengrocer where they sell loose apples as opposed to pre-sorted bags. Pick apples that are nice and ripe, but avoid any that are excessively bruised or battered (though windblown specimens are fine to use). Keeping them in a cool place, such as a garage or a barn, for a couple of weeks will soften the skin, but do not be tempted to wash them as this will inhibit the natural yeasts. Once the 2 weeks are up, chop them into segments and press out the juice.
A homemade cider press using a car jack
At this stage you can check the pH to make certain there is the right level of malic acid – the principal acid in cider – present. Most chemists sell litmus paper, and you’re looking for a pH of around 4. If you feel it’s too high, you can lower the pH by adding more malic acid, or if it’s too low, you can bring it up with precipitated chalk.
Traditionally the juice would have been stored in wooden barrels and left to ferment, but nowadays it’s easier to store it in a fermenting bin or demijohns. Fit an airlock, and leave it to ferment. Note that if you have enough liquid, you can use a dustbin, but make sure the construction of the plastic is not such that the dye will leach out and taint your cider.
After a day or so the wild yeast that has been pressed out of the skin will begin to be activated, and fermentation will start. Leave it for a couple of weeks. If at the end of this period the bubbles have stopped, then fermentation has stopped and you can bottle it. If they haven’t stopped, then you might like to add a crushed Campden tablet to halt the fermentation manually.
Unlike with wine and beer, you need not worry about the ambient temperature and keeping it warm, as the wild yeasts are happy to cultivate as long as the temperature is above freezing. Most cider makers store their cider in an outbuilding, where the time of year will have an impact on the acid. Ciders made in warmer months tend to have a milder taste, whilst those made in cooler months retain a little more sharpness.
Allow it to mature for a couple of months before chilling and drinking. This cider will keep for up to 1 year.
Turbo cider
It is possible to make cider from cartons of apple juice and avoid all the rigmarole of collecting apples and pressing them, but bear in mind the fact that the juices you buy have been processed, and that means the chemical composition will be different from the freshly pressed apples used for proper cider. The result is not going to be quite the same as true cider– but it isn’t called turbo cider for nothing and it is a lot quicker!
5 litres/8¾ pints/5¼ quarts additive- and preservative-free apple juice
juice of 1 lemon
1 sachet fast-action bread yeast
Pour 4 litres/7 pints/4¼ quarts of the apple juice into a demijohn and add the lemon juice. Activate the yeast by dissolving it in a little warm water, and add it to the mixture. Put an airlock in place and place the demijohn in a warm place. After about 2 days, the foam collected on top should die down. Top up the demijohn with as much of the remaining apple juice as is needed to fill up to the neck. Leave for about 2 weeks, then siphon into two 2-litre/3½-pint/2-quart plastic bottles. Chill and enjoy!
Perry
Similar to cider, perry is made by fermenting pears. Specially grown perry pears are best, as the flavour of eating pears is quite mellow, and when that’s passed through the fermentation process the flavour can sometimes get lost completely. The trick (if you have only eating pears available) is to slice some of the pear skin and add it to the perry at the fermenting stage, something like half a pear skin to every 4.5 litres/ 1 gallon/4¾ quarts pear juice.
The other problem with perry is that although there is plenty of natural yeast contained within the skin, the pear offers very little nutrient and nourishment for the yeast to feed on, so it’s best to add 1 tsp yeast nutrient to every 4.5 litres/1 gallon/4¾ quarts pear juice. Other than that, make it as though you were making cider.
MEAD
Thought to be the oldest form of brewing, mead is wine made from honey. There are lots of lovely stories about mead, about how it was made by monks who wanted beeswax for their candles, and making mead was a good way of using up the mountains of honey that accumulated. But the cutest tradition surrounding mead is how it used to be saved up and drunk at weddings, and the happy couple would then be presented with enough mead to drink for the first month of their marriage, coining the phrase ‘honeymoon’.
Similar to all drinks, mead has a simple base-line entry, where a drink is produced just flavoured by the honey, but from there it can be lifted and personalized by adding spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or ginger, and fruit such as orange zest, lemon, even apple.
Mead
Although honey is a natural sugar, the sugar content does vary from type to type. When making mead, it is recommended that you use a light-coloured set honey, as this tends to have a higher level of sugar, and the colour is more pleasing in the finished drink than a dark-coloured honey. Mead should be stored for 2 months before you drink it, and will keep indefinitely.
1.3–1.8kg/3–4lb honey (depending on how sweet you like your mead)
juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp general-purpose wine yeast
Warm the honey and gradually dilute it in 4.5 litres/1 gallon/4¾ quarts water until it has all been incorporated, then add the lemon juice and wine yeast and siphon into a demijohn fitted with an airlock. Store for 6 weeks, then siphon off into another demijohn. Repeat this process three more times before bottling the mead and leaving it to mature.
Variation
If you have only clear honey, not set, increase the amount by a quarter, decreasing the water accordingly to compensate.
FLAVOURING ALCOHOL
Whilst you cannot legally distil your own alcohol, you can flavour it. Think of it as the Christmas Sloe Gin brigade brought up-to-date and made sharp and modern. However, the one thing the CSG brigade did get right was that the base for flavoring alcohol begins, as all good things should, with gin.
Gin
Rhubarb and vanilla gin – to 1kg/2¼lb of diced pink rhubarb stalks (no root, no leaves), add 400g/14oz/2 cups vanilla caster sugar, stir and leave overnight. Transfer to a Kilner jar and add 800ml/28¼fl oz of gin. Shake well daily until the sugar has dissolved and leave for 4 weeks. Put through a water filter for a crystal-clear finish. Try it served with soda water as a refreshing change to tonic.
Raspberry and lemon gin – mix 350g/12oz raspberries, 150g/5½oz/ ¾ cup sugar, 700ml/24¾fl oz bottle of gin and the peel (as little pith as you can) of 1 lemon in a Kilner jar. Shake well daily until the sugar has dissolved and leave for 2 weeks. Put through a water filter for a crystal-clear finish.
Marmalade gin – mix 250g/9oz marmalade, 700ml/24¾fl oz gin, 2 strips of lemon zest (pith removed) and 1 tbsp vanilla caster sugar in a Kilner jar. Shake well daily until the sugar has dissolved and leave for 2 weeks. Put through a water filter for a crystal-clear finish.
Elderflower gin – mix 10 freshly picked elderflower heads, 1 strip of lemon peel, 1½ tbsp vanilla caster sugar and 700ml/24¾fl oz gin in a Kilner jar. Shake well daily until the sugar has dissolved and leave for 2 weeks. Put through a water filter for a crystal-clear finish.
Vodka
Flavouring vodka is slightly different to gin because vodka doesn’t have much of a taste to begin with, therefore you can go a little wilder with flavourings.
Toffee vodka – mix 300g/10½oz all-butter candy or toffee éclairs, and 700ml/24¾fl oz vodka in a Kilner jar. Shake well daily until the toffee has dissolved. Pass through a water filter to clear.
After Eight Mint vodka – you need one box of After Eight Mints or equivalent and 700ml/24¾fl oz vodka. Remove the mints from their sleeves and freeze for 24 hours. Roughly break them up with a rolling pin and add to a Kilner jar. Pour the vodka over them and shake daily until dissolved. Pass though a water filter to clear.
Limoncello vodka – Add the zest and juice of 3 lemons, 700ml/ 24¾fl oz vodka and 200g/7oz/1 cup caster sugar to a Kilner jar and shake daily until all the sugar has dissolved, then leave for a further week. Pass through a water filter to clear.
ENERGY DRINKS AND SMOOTHIES
Feeling tired, a bit run down? Has your body lost its spring and your feet feel heavy so every step’s an effort? What you need is a pick-me-up. Now – I know I’m selling this but it’s important – you’ve got a choice. One, you can nip out and buy a can of something shiny and flashy, being careful not to read the ingredients because just a flick through them would turn your hair green at the amount of caffeine and sugar and ‘E numbers’ and additives and emulsifiers and enhancers and flavourings and, and, and … bubbles – down it (no, you can’t have vodka with it, behave yourself) and you’d feel your heartbeat stampede like a galloping horse – OR you can turn to nature and self-sufficiency and create a nice drink, healthy, good to your body, yet full of natural energy boosters.
Natural energy drink
To hot water in a mug, add:
1 tsp honey
slice of ginger root, cut and added whole
squeeze of lemon
¼ tsp turmeric
2 dandelion roots, dried, toasted and added whole
slices of cucumber, added whole
Cracking healthy smoothie
The number one rule for healthy smoothies is: if it’s green, be keen. Spinach, kale, celery, wheatgrass or Swiss chard are all perfect bases for your green smoothie. For texture, creaminess and thickness, banana is essential. For the body of the smoothie, add your favorite milk – oat if you have it, it works really well, but if not, any milk. Lastly, fruit: any berries you can forage or buy, frozen or fresh. Blend on high speed for a minute and enjoy.
NATURAL SOFT DRINKS AND CHILDREN’S FAVOURITES
Of course it would be wonderful if our children drank nothing but water, smoothies and fruit juice, but with temptation all around in cans of bright, sparkling, fizzy drinks, unless you’re really, really lucky, that’s unlikely to happen. So the next best thing is to make some healthier, delicious, additive-free alternatives, which can be kept in the fridge in plastic bottles or glass jugs (or in sterilized bottles out of the fridge) for up to 2 months, so at least you know what’s going into your children’s bodies. And then there’s the bonus that they taste just as good to adults!
Traditional lemonade
juice of 5–6 lemons
3 tbsp granulated sugar
Put 1.5 litres/2½ pints/6½ cups water in a 2-litre/3½-pint/2-quart bottle and add the lemon juice. Carefully tip in the sugar, then secure the lid and shake vigorously. Top up with water to the neck and shake again. Adjust the sugar and lemon to taste, if necessary. Chill and drink, or pour over ice.
Elderflower cordial
Like stepping into a cool shower on a hot summer’s day, elderflower cordial refreshes and reinvigorates the senses. For the adult version, or to make it special, add it to sparkling wine or champagne.
680g/1½lb/scant 3½ cups granulated sugar
2.25 litres/4 pints elderflower heads in full bloom, not pressed down (see note on page 299 regarding picking)
juice of 1½ lemons, along with the remaining ½ lemon, sliced
1 lime, sliced
1 mint sprig
Put 2 litres/3½ pints/2 quarts water and the sugar into a large saucepan and heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves to make a syrup. Remove from the heat and add the elderflower heads, lemon juice, sliced lemon, lime and mint. Cover and leave for 24 hours. Strain through a muslin cloth into a 2 litre/3½ pint/2-quart plastic bottle and chill. Mix with water to drink, or dilute it into a punch and add lots of diced fruit for a taste of summer.
Blackcurrant cordial
This cordial is best served diluted with ice-cold still or sparkling water. It can be frozen for up to 3 months, undiluted, in ice-cube trays/bags and used from frozen. The blackcurrants can be replaced with red or white currants, blackberries, blueberries or raspberries.
450g/1lb blackcurrants
250g/9oz/2¼ cups white granulated sugar
juice and thinly pared rind of 1 lemon
Put the blackcurrants and sugar in a saucepan with 250ml/9fl oz/ 1 cup water and heat gently, stirring constantly, until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring the cordial to a gentle simmer. After simmering for 5 minutes add the juice and rind of the lemon and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Sterilize a glass bottle and strain the slightly cooled cordial through a fine (non-metallic) sieve into a jug, then fill the bottle. Leave to cool thoroughly before capping.