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Drink

Plum Wine

A fermented beverage made from Malaga raisins, water, and damson juice, aged for months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Plum Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the raisins into a tub.

  2. Boil the water for one hour and let it cool to milk-warm.

Ferment

  1. Add the raisins to the water and let it stand for 9-10 days, stirring once or twice daily.

  2. Strain out the liquid and mix it with the damson juice.

Age and bottle

  1. Transfer to a vessel and let it sit for 4-5 months before bottling.

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

Malaga raisins
Supply the sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol, and give the wine its body and sweetness.
Damson juice
Adds tartness and plum flavor, balancing the sweetness of the raisin liquid.

The step that matters

Letting the water cool to milk-warm before adding the raisins. Water that is still very hot can kill the wild yeasts and bacteria that drive fermentation. Cooling it to milk-warm keeps the microbes active so the raisins ferment steadily over the 9-10 days.

“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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