The same book I spoke of yesterday has a very interesting entry in the wine chapter.
It is drawn from Mackenzie’s 5,000 Reciepts, 1829.
Here it is:
CHEAP AND WHOLESOME CLARET: Take a quart of fine draft Devonshire cider, and an equal quantity of good port. Mix them, and shake them. Bottle them and let them stand for a month. The best judge will not be able to distinguish them from good Bordeaux.
Here’s another from Dr. Chase’s Recipes, 1869 :
TOMATO WINE: Express the juice from clean ripe tomatoes, and to each gallon of it, (without any water), put brown sugar 4 lbs.
Put in the sugar immediately, or before fermentation begins- this ought to be done in making any fruit wine. Something of the character of a cheese press, hoop and cloth, is the best plan to squeeze out the juice of tomatoes or other fruits. Let the wine stand in a keg or barrel for two or three months; then draw off into bottles, carefully avoiding the sediment.
It makes a most delightful wine, having all the beauties of flavor belonging to the tomato, and I have no doubt all its medicinal properties also, either as a tonic in desease, or as a beverage for those who are in the habit of using intoxicating beverages, and if such persons would have the good sense to make some wine of this kind, and use it instead of rot-gut whisky, there would not be one-hundredth part of the “snakes in the boot” that now curse our land. It must be tasted to be appreciated. I have it now, which is three years old, worth more than much pretended wine which is sold for three or four shillings a pint.