Red Beetroot Wine

Ingredients

• six quarts of ripe sloes
• thirty pounds of purple beetroots
• nine gallons and a half of soft water
• twenty-six pounds of strong moist sugar
• eight tablespoonfuls of strong yeast
• six ounces of sugar-candy
• a quart of French brandy
• an ounce of the best isinglass
• two ounces of bitter almonds

Method

1. 1

   Bruise sloes and boil in water for 20 minutes.

2. 2

   Strain into a jar.

3. 3

   Wash beetroots, boil until tender, peel, and slice.

4. 4

   Add to the sloe liquor with lemon rinds and raisins.

5. 5

   Boil sugar with water, pour over beetroots, and add yeast.

6. 6

   Let ferment for three days, strain, and add sugar-candy and brandy.

7. 7

   Rack and filter, then age for 18 months before bottling.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Cassell's dictionary of cookery (1892) by Cassell & Company, page 2293. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

six quarts of ripe sloes (the fruit of the black thorn) in a stone mortar, breaking the stones, boil them twenty minutes in two quarts of soft water, strain the liquor, and pour it into a stone jar. Scrub well -w^ith a soft brush and wa»h thirty pounds of purple beetroots, but on no account cut or break the skins, and boil them slowly till tender. WTien cold, peel and sUce them into a tub, pour to them the sloe liquor, cover them up, and the following day add the rinds of three lemons and four Seville oranges, and twelve pounds of Smyrna raisins cut in halves. Boil twenty-six pounds of strong moist sugar with nine gallons and a half of soft water three-quarters of an hour, skimming it well, and pour it hot into the tub upon the sliced beetroots, &c. ; stir well, and when lukewarm work it well with eight table- spoonfuls of strong yeast, cover it up, and let it remain three days; then strain tlie liquor, and filter it into your caslc, filling to the bung. Let it work out, and when the fermentation is over, put to the wine six ounces of sugar-candy and a quart of French brandy. Then stop it up for a month, rack it oft', filter the lees, and put all again into the cask with an ounce of the best isinglass dissolved, and two ounces of bitter almonds

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.