Peggy's Moonshine

We’ve had such fun making moonshine! On our first visit down to Devon in October two years ago to view this property and meet the landlords, we stopped on the way back and spent the night with Mike’s cousins who live about an hour away. To our delight, they had apple wine bubbling in glass demijohns all over their house. With dinner we had some wine from the previous year’s harvest. It was very good and not too alcoholic as we all happily drank plenty of it that evening and no one had a hangover next morning!

Imagine our joy when we moved here the following month to see those apple trees in the kitchen garden - still laden with fruit. We did nothing that year as we had no sooner settled into our new home than we went away for five weeks to Turkey. But the following autumn (2013 produced a bumper apple crop) we collected over one hundred pounds of fruit and made 60 litres of apple wine following a rather casual recipe given to us. It was a long winded and tiring business, divided into two batches. I later read a book on wine making and discovered that in the first batch we did almost everything wrong! We rigged up our own primitive fruit press that was more trouble than it was worth, the wine got oxidized, we added far too much sugar so it continued to ferment for ages - in fact I think the last few bottles are still fermenting!

For the second batch I tried to follow a better recipe with less sugar and no bother of pressing the fruit. It ended up clearer, drier and less fizzy. Mike preferred the first batch and I preferred the second. Both were perfectly pleasant, but neither was very alcoholic. When I spoke to a friend who used to run a brewing company, he told me that the ordinary brewer’s yeast that I had used would never produce alcohol! Well, we got a happy little buzz from the wine, but perhaps we imagined it.

None the less we enjoyed it all and later on that autumn I made four bottles of Sloe Gin which were ready for Christmas and then I put the used sloe berries over brandy and made a bottle of Sloe Brandy. The Sloe Brandy is like a sweet liqueur and rather nice.

Years ago while we were sailing in New Zealand someone gave us a recipe for Saki (rice wine) which we tried and were rather happy with. Remembering that and inspired by all this moonshine, I made a new batch of Saki and in June this year we invited our neighbours to a drinks party. The party was a success in that our guests arrived and appeared to enjoy the booze, but it failed the real reason, which was to get to know the neighbours better. Not one of them has returned the hospitality. Never mind, we know the English are difficult to get to know.

This year, we got more organised and went to the wine shop and bought proper yeast, nutrient and other special ingredients. A charming young man in the wine shop gave me a recipe and lots of instructions for making apple wine and I have followed them to the letter. This year we have only made 25 litres. Much more manageable. It is fermenting ‘vigorously’ under the table in the kitchen. I admit last year’s batch didn’t burble anything like that.

One of the neighbours who came to our summer party gave us a big bag of red grapes late in the summer and we have made about six litres of wine. I don’t know how this will turn out, but they ferment, very quietly, next to the more boisterous apple wine and the serenely still Sloe gin.The Sloe Gin was so popular last year, I have upped the quantity.

I can’t mention it yet, because I haven’t made it yet, but I’m in the process of making Limoncello - watch this space!