Whilst carefully evaluating a number of the proprieters of fermented goods at the local Good Food & Wine expo, or rather - trolling for tastings, I came across the booth for Stone’s, a popular european brand of ginger based goosd - most notably their ginger wine.
If you haven’t sampled their mouth candy, you must. Their alcoholic ginger beer and ginger wine is worth it - and I’m sure I’ll be a regular buyer - once I find a bottle shop that stocks it nearby.
In the meantime though, I thought I’d give it a go for myself. Of course I did.
Well, it turns out there aren’t that many recipes to be found. Of the several recipes I looked at, exactly zero of them used all the ingredients they specify - and don’t inspire confidence. So in my usual tradition - I decided to wing it.
So, here’s my recipe for ginger wine!
Ingredients:
- 1 big-ass bit of ginger, thinly sliced
- 1.5ish kg of white sugar
- 2 lemons, zested and juiced
- 2 oranges, juiced
Instructions:
- Boil up about 2.5L of water in a saucepan, add ginger and lemon zest.
- Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Drain off juice into a second saucepan.
- Bring ginger and another 2.5L of water to the boil in the saucepan.
- Whilst the first saucepan is coming to the boil, heat the second and stir in all the sugar until it dissolved, then remove from heat.
- Drain off the ginger and put the liquid into the first saucepan, stir.
- Cover with a teatowel and stand for 12 hours.
- Warm the juice up a little bit and add some activated wine yeast
- Covering with a teatowel, stir twice a day for 3-5 days
- Strain the liquid into a demijon with an airlock.
- After twelve weeks of fermentation, rack every 3-4 months until it is has been going for 12 months.
- Bottle and enjoy.
As I write, I’m only up to stage 7, so pretend I’ve got a bottle of Stone’s, with a fresh linen covering the label - some I prepared earlier.
Updates as they come - I can’t wait :)
