Gooseberry Wine

Ingredients

• gooseberries
• water
• 3 pounds lump sugar
• vichy

Instructions

1. Wash and drain dead-ripe gooseberries, mash them thoroughly with a wooden pestle, and add their own bulk of boiling water.
2. Let stand thirty-six hours unless the weather is very warm — then twenty-four will be long enough.
3. Press out all the juice, even though it runs muddy.
4. Measure, and to each gallon add three pounds down-weight of the best lump sugar.
5. Stir well, repeating every day for a week.
6. Then cover with lawn and let stand till fermentation ceases.
7. Cover tight then and leave standing six weeks longer, so the wine may fatten on the lees.
8. Back off carefully, filtering the muddy part at the bottom through several thicknesses of cheese cloth.
9. Put in a clean vessel for two months longer, then bottle and seal.
10. Lay the bottles on the side, and decant the wine carefully — done so it will show a bright golden yellow with much the translucence of topaz.
11. It reaches perfection at a year.
12. Being rather heavy it is improved to many palates by adding ice-cold vichy after it is in the glasses.