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Drink

Elder Flower Wine

A fermented beverage made from water, sugar, yeast, and elderflowers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Elder Flower Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil the water and sugar together for half an hour, skimming regularly.

  2. Let the mixture cool until it is milk-warm.

  3. Add the yeast and stir well.

Ferment

  1. Once fermentation starts, add the elderflowers.

  2. Stir daily until fermentation ceases.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the alcohol that forms in the wine.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the whole fermentation.
Elderflowers
Add the floral aroma that flavours the finished wine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until it is milk-warm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so adding it too early can stop fermentation before it starts. Milk-warm is cool enough for the yeast to survive and still warm enough to become active.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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