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Drink

Coltsfoot Wine

A herbal wine made by steeping dried coltsfoot flowers in boiling water, sweetened with sugar, and aged in bottles.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Gather enough coltsfoot flowers to fill 4 quart measures when dried for three or four days in the sun.

  2. Pour 8 quarts of boiling water over the dried flowers.

  3. Add 8 lbs of sugar to the mixture and stir until dissolved.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Transfer the mixture into stone bottles and allow it to stand for two or three days.

  2. Move the bottles to a warm place for two or three weeks.

  3. Cork the bottles lightly, then later secure the corks tightly.

  4. Bottle the wine in smaller bottles after about six months, taking care not to disturb the sediment.

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

Dried coltsfoot flowers
Provide the main flavour and aroma of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the fermentation and provides sweetness to the finished wine.

The step that matters

Bottle the wine without disturbing the sediment. Yeast and plant solids settle during the long rest. Stirring them back up makes the wine cloudy and gritty, so pour gently and leave the sediment behind.

“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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