Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright
Boil four gallons of water, and one-half pound of sugar an hour, skim it well, and let it stand till it is cold. Then to every quart of that water, allow one and one-half pounds of gooseberries, first beaten or bruised very well; let it stand twenty-four hours. Then strain it out, and to every gallon of this liquor put three pounds of sugar; let it stand in the vat twelve hours. Then take the thick scum off, and put the clear into a vessel fit for it, and let it stand a month; then draw it off, and rinse the vessel with some of the liquor. Put it in again, and let it stand four months, and bottle it.
GOOSEBERRY WINE
Take to every four pounds of gooseberries one and one-quarter pounds of sugar, and one quart of fair water. Bruise the berries, and steep them twenty-four hours in the water, stirring them often; then press the liquor from them, and put your sugar to the liquor. Then put in a vessel fit for it, and when it is done working stop it up, and let it stand a month; then rack it off into another vessel, and let it stand five or six weeks longer. Then bottle it out, putting a small lump of sugar into every bottle; cork your bottles well, and three months' end it will be fit to drink. In the same manner is currant and raspberry wine made; but cherry wine differs, for the cherries are not to be bruised, but stoned, and put the sugar and water together, and give it a boil and a skim, and then put in your fruit, letting it stew with a gentle fire a quarter of an hour, and then let it run through a sieve without pressing, and when it is cold put it in a vessel, and order it as your gooseberry or currant wine. The only cherries for wine are the great bearers, Murray cherries, Morelloes, Black Flanders, or the John Treduskin cherries.
GOOSEBERRY WINE, NO. 2
Pick and bruise the gooseberries, and to every pound of berries put one quart of cold spring water, and let it stand three days, stirring it twice or thrice a day. Add to every gallon of juice three pounds of loaf sugar. Fill the barrel, and when it is done working, add to every ten quarts of liquor one pint of brandy and a little isinglass. The gooseberries must be picked when they are just changing color. The liquor ought to stand in the barrel six months. Taste it occasionally, and bottle when the sweetness has gone off.
GOOSEBERRY & CURRANT WINE
The following method of making superior gooseberry and currant wines is recommended in a French work. For currant wine four pounds of honey, dissolved in seven gallons of boiling water, to which, when clarified, is added the juice of four pounds of red or white currants. It is then fermented for twenty-four hours and one pound of sugar to every one gallon of water is added. The preparation is afterward clarified with whites of eggs and cream of tartar. For gooseberry wine, the fruit is gathered dry when about half-ripe, and then pounded in a mortar. The juice when properly strained is mixed with sugar in the proportion of three pounds to every two gallons of juice. It is then left in a quiet state for fifteen days, at the expiration of which it is carefully poured off and left to ferment for three months, when the quantity is under fifteen gallons, and five months when double that quantity. It is then bottled and soon becomes fit for drinking.
PEARL GOOSEBERRY WINE
Take as many as you please of the best gooseberries, bruise them, and let them stand all night. The next morning press or squeeze them out and let the liquor stand to settle seven or eight hours; then pour off the clear from the settling, and measure it as you put it into your vessel, adding to every three pints of liquor one pound of double refined sugar. Break your sugar into fine lumps, and put it in the vessel with a bit of isinglass, stop it up, and at three months' end bottle it out, putting into every bottle a lump of double refined sugar. This is the fine gooseberry wine.
RED GOOSEBERRY WINE
Take five gallons cold soft water, five and one-half gallons red gooseberries, and ferment. Now mix eight pounds raw sugar, one pound beet root sliced, one-half ounce red tartar in fine powder. Afterward put in one-half pound sassafras chips, one-half gallon brandy or less. This will make nine gallons.
RED & WHITE GOOSEBERRY WINE
Take one and one-half gallons cold soft water, three quarts red gooseberries, two quarts white gooseberries. Ferment. Now mix two and one-half pounds raw sugar, three-quarters pound honey, one-half ounce tartar in fine powder. Afterwards put in one ounce bitter almonds, a small handful sweet briar, two quarts brandy or less.
WHITE GOOSEBERRY OR CHAMPAGNE WINE
Take four and one-half gallons cold soft water and fifteen quarts of white gooseberries. Ferment. Now mix six pounds refined sugar, four pounds honey, one ounce white tartar in fine powder. Put in one ounce dry orange and lemon peel, or two ounces fresh, and add one-half gallon white brandy. This will make nine gallons.
Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer.
Colonial Era Cookbooks
1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London)
1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)
1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)
1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)
1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)
Helpful Secondary Sources
America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972
Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996
Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown ABC-CLIO Westport, United States
Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver
Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.
A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.
