Elderberry Wine

Gather ripe elderberries.

Put them into a stone jar and mash with a round stick.

Set the jar in a warm oven, or in a large kettle of boiling water until the jar is hot through and the berries begin to simmer.

Take the jar out, press and strain the contents through a sieve.

To each quart of juice, add a pound of Havana or Lisbon sugar and two quarts of cold soft water.

Put the sugar into a large kettle, pour the juice over it, and stir until dissolved.

Stir in the water.

Set the kettle over the fire, boil and skim until the scum ceases to rise.

To four gallons of the liquor, add a pint and a half of brandy.

Put it into a keg, and let it stand with the bung loosely closed for four or five days until fermentation stops.

Stop it closely, plaster the bung with clay.

After six months, draw off a little of it; if not clear and bright, refine it with the whites and shells of three or four eggs beaten to a stiff froth and stirred into a quart of the wine, taken out for the purpose and then returned to the cask; or refine with an ounce or more of dissolved isinglass.

Let it stand a week or two, then bottle it.