Monday, December 8, 2014

How to Make Turnip Wine, 1796


"To make Turnip Wine. Take a good many turnips, pare, slice, and put them in a cyder-press, and press out all the juice very well; to every gallon of juice have three pounds of lump-sugar, have a vessel ready just big enough to hold the juice, put your sugar into a vessel, and also to every gallon of juice half a pint of brandy; pour in the juice, and lay something over the bung for a week, to see if it works; if it does, you must not bung it down till it has done working: then stop it close for three months, and draw it off in another vessel. When it is fine, bottle it off."
Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

When will your turnip wine taste fine? Maybe right after you've downed the last bottle of non-turnip wine.

3 comments:

  1. 'lay SOMETHING over the bung' ? The mind boggles at the possible choices.
    So to me, what we have here is... turnip-flavoured brandy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bung: noun and verb

    ReplyDelete
  3. Apparently preserved turnip is a super food... so that wine would have done wonders! Photographic proof here: http://instagram.com/p/xTOguvR5lO/?modal=true

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.