Cowslip Wine No 1 Recipe

To twenty gallons of water, wine measure, put fifty pounds of lump

sugar; boil it, and skim it till it is very clear; then put it into a

tub to cool, and, when just warm, put to it two tea-spoonfuls of ale

yest. Let it work for a short time; then put in fifteen pecks of cut

cowslips, and the juice of twenty large lemons, likewise the outward

rinds pared off as thin as possible. Keep it in the tub two or three

days, stirring it twice each day. Then put it all together in a barrel,

cleansed and dried. Continue to stir twice a day for a week or more,

till it has done working; then stop it up close for three months, and

bottle it off for use.

The cowslips should be gathered in one day, and the wine made as soon as

possible after, as the fresh flowers make the wine of a finer colour

than when they are withered; but they will not hurt by being kept for a

few days if they are spread on a cloth, and moved every day.