Yesterday DH picked tons of blackberries, gleaned from P* and M*’s, and tons of elderberries, and then stayed up til 1:00 this morning taking the elderberries off their stems and removing the stink bugs. Then he put eight pounds of each kind of berry in two five gallon stainless steel pots, poured boiling water over them and covered them very tightly with plastic wrap to prevent fruit flies from getting in. They were still warm at 7:30 this morning. Sometime today or this evening I’ll add wine yeast (Montrachet) to the pots, and then we’ll let them sit for a few (3 or 4) days, though I’ll remove the plastic wrap and instead tie a piece of cheesecloth around each one. The plastic wouldn’t stay on once it starts fermenting—it needs to breathe at that point.

We need to rack off our three gallon jar of dandelion wine. It is gorgeous, clear, and delicious this year. Very dark in color, probably because of the brown sugar we used. It’ll be lovely to open a bottle for the solstice this winter!

Susun Weed says some interesting things about elderberries, and I will share them as soon as I find my book, which I seem to have loaned out. It’s Herbal for the Childbearing Year—highly recommended if anybody out there doesn’t already have a copy.

Our wine-making guru is an English fellow named C.J.J. Berry (appropriately enough). He has a little book called First Steps in Winemaking. He has recipes using just about any kind of fruit you can think of, plus flowers and a few vegetables. Lots of us Hot Springs winemakers use his book, so if you want to be cool, you may need to get a copy!