graveyarddirt:

Today’s hooch-themed magic chore of the day: making this year’s batch of simple strawberry wine.

graveyarddirt:

Simple Strawberry Wine, by Ms. Graveyard Dirt

I fucking loathe the practice of sharing a recipe through a personal journal without cushioning it with some sort of story or narrative. Capping the shit with a single paragraph makes it worse (those several sentences ain’t foolin’ no one, babe), and without some variation of hook, line and sinker - whether visual or anecdotal - I find myself feeling like a random cookbook page is getting aggressively shoved in my fucking face in lieu of actual content.

Normally I keep my judgmental bullshit to myself unless someone’s dangerously close to treading on my territory, but I’m on the verge of being a fucking hypocrite about one of my major blogging pet peeves so I thought honesty, in this effing case, is probably the best policy. (<- I was baptized and took my first holy communion under the protective care of St. Nicholas in an Orthodox Ukrainian cathedral; I think my ass is just Catholic enough to allow me to participate in repentant acts of public self-flagellation.)

Since I’m being completely honest with y’all I guess I should be super honest and say that, really, I’m not being 100% honest. It’s not that I don’t have an anecdote, or entertaining narrative, or even a simple fucking purpose behind sharing this recipe, it’s that I don’t have any fucking time to hammer that shit out. I don’t have the time to convince you to hunt down a fucking punnet of local strawberries while they’re still deliciously in season, or how enormously tempting this was within the first 24 hours of creation, or how three simple ingredients ritually mixed at the appropriate time with a little devotion and love can create an incredibly satisfying personal libation.

So, in lieu of actual content, I’m going to aggressively shove this recipe out of a not-so-random cookbook into your motherfucking face and cushion this thinly disguised “journal entry” with four or five measly paragraphs to convince you to get off your fucking ass and engage in some simple - but meaningful! - homemade hoochery. Why? I wish I had time to explain, but I’ve got a mother of a fucking nightmare waiting for me in the backroom, and one flightless crow that needs attention. Besides, the best reason will be the one you experience firsthand when straining albino strawberries out of a jar of wine (or sherry) in six weeks time.

SIMPLE STRAWBERRY WINE
”Strawberries lose much of their elusive flavor when made into wine. This method retains the scented fragrance of the fruit.” This recipe was adapted from Carol Wilson’s Favorite Country Wines and Cordials; Traditional Homemade Drinks.

INGREDIENTS:
* Strawberries, 2lb
* Caster sugar (aka superfine), 8oz
* White wine (or sherry), to cover

METHOD:
Place alternate layers of strawberries and sugar in a sterile jar, filling it right to the top. Pour the wine or sherry slowly over the fruit to cover, ensuring there are no air bubbles between the layers. Seal tightly and store in a cool dry place for 4-6 weeks. When ready, strain the liquid into a sterilized bottle and seal tightly. The type of sherry used is according to preference or availability, but medium sherry is generally suitable.

One word of advice: don’t waste your time with unseasonal fruit. Seriously. Your end product will sorely lack the flavor you’re trying to lock in. Get your strawberries locally if you can, either by visiting pick-your-own farms, haunting farmers’ markets/fresh produce events, growing your own (strawberries are something that happily grow in containers, and you only need a few fruit-producing plants to make a small batch of homemade hooch) or by checking the provenance of grocery store punnets.

(I try and buy organic Scottish strawberries instead of organic British strawberries; I know that the UK’s a small island, but there’s a discernible difference between a strawberry grown 30 miles away and one grown 300, and that doesn’t even take account of the extra resources needed to maintain and transport long-distance fruit.)

Definitely going to give this a go now that it’s strawberry season. Just wondering, have you tried doing this with any herbs? Was thinking about trying out a much more delicious way of taking my medicine ;) Also, are the strawberries OK to eat after wards? I want to preserve some for my wedding (which is in the middle of winter).