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Drink

Barberry Wine

A fermented beverage made from ripe barberries steeped in boiling water, sweetened with sugar, and aged before bottling.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Bruise the barberries in a large container.

  2. Add boiling water to the barberries and let it sit for at least three days, stirring every morning and evening.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve to extract the juice.

Make and bottle the wine

  1. Transfer the juice to a seasoned cask and add sugar.

  2. After a few months, bottle the wine, adding a small lump of loaf sugar to each bottle.

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

Barberries
Provide the fruit flavour and acidity that give the wine its character.
Sugar
Feeds fermentation and sweetens the finished wine.

The step that matters

Stirring the steeping mixture each morning and evening. Regular stirring keeps the fruit submerged and in contact with the water, helping the juice and flavour extract evenly. Stirring also distributes air, which supports the early stages of fermentation.

“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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