Blue biro on canary-yellow notepad paper, circa 2015
Apparently includes sundry marginalia of dubious origin, also circa 2015
TIPS FOR PICKING ELDERFLOWERS
- Best gathered June–July, in the early morning
- Look for sprays of creamy-white flowers with a distinctive summery scent
- Choose flowers that have fully blossomed, but aren’t yet touched by brown
- Don’t pick flowers that smell sickly
- Don’t take too many from one source
- Always remember to ask permission from the witch who inhabits the elder tree. Or you may be cursed
If the tree seems grumpy, you probably shouldn’t take her flowers
PREPARING THE ELDERFLOWERS
- Elderflowers are fragile and deteriorate quickly, so use them as soon as possible after picking
- Shake rather than wash, encourage any insects who may have taken up residence in the flowers to move on
- Trim the stems
EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED
- A bucket with a lid
- A thermometer
- Two 5-litre bottles or you can buy a couple of demijohns like everyone else
- An airlock for the bottles Again you can buy these to fit the demijohns. Or you can use cotton wool, cling film, and an elastic band, which is fine
- A muslin strainer or a sieve
- A piece of plastic tubing about 1.5 m long
INGREDIENTS
- 500 ml of elderflowers
- 1.5 kg white sugar
- 250 g raisins or sultanas, washed and lightly chopped (this gives the wine body)
- 1/2 mug strong tea, cooled (for tannin)
- The juice of three lemons
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 tsp yeast (ideally a wine yeast)
- 4.5 litres boiling water
WHAT TO DO
- Before beginning—unless you are intentionally planning to make several bottles of vinegar—you will need to sanitise all the things: you can get sanitising solutions for this, or just use a lot of boiling water. Or make your boyfriend do it. Or that.
- Dissolve the sugar in 500 ml of the boiling water.
- Put the flowers, raisins (or sultanas), and lemon juice in the bucket.
- Pour over the remaining boiling water, and then stir in the sugar solution.
- Cover the bucket and wait until the temperature has dropped to 21°C which could take all day if it’s hot outside.
- Then add the yeast, yeast nutrient, and tea. Cover again and put somewhere warm (airing cupboard, space under the stairs).
- It should start fermenting within a day or two—you’ll be able to see bubbles of gas being produced.
- In the early stages of fermentation, some of the yeast and flowers may gather near the surface, forming a crust. If this happens, stir it back into the mixture with a sanitised spoon and reseal the bucket.
- Basically, leave everything alone until the vigorous stage of fermentation has passed. This can take a week or two.
- Strain the liquid into the sterilised bottle. or demijohn. Top up to the shoulder with cooled boiled water and seal. A cling film–covered cotton wool plug will suffice or you could just buy an airlock bung.
- Put the bottle back in a warm place.
- When fermentation stops and the wine begins to clear, sediment will accumulate at the bottom of the bottle. This could take anything from two weeks to two months.
- Once the wine begins to look clear, you’ll need to rack it. Set the bottle of clearing wine on a chair or table, and place the second (empty and sanitised) bottle lower down. Put one end of the sanitised tube into the wine, stopping about 5 cm above the sediment. You may need to clamp this in place. Or get your boyfriend to hold it for hours. Bring the other end of the tube to a position below the bottle of wine and suck on it (carefully) until the liquid begins to flow. Put the lower end of the tube into the new container and wait as the contents of the old bottle flow into the new, leaving the sediment behind. This does not take hours, whatever else you may have heard.
- Leave the wine for another week or so to clear the rest of the sediment.
- Rack it a second time, and then decant into sanitised bottles.
Store the wine somewhere cool and let it rest, ideally for a year or eighteen months.
If it smells weirdly of semen or cat wee, something has gone wrong.
One time. That was one time.