Cassell's dictionary of cookery

It must remain a year or more in bottle, for apricot wine is a very rich wine, and is improved greatly by age. Wine, Beetroot, Red. — Bruise six quarts of ripe sloes (the fruit of the black thorn) in a stone mortar, breaking the stones, boil them twenty minutes in two quarts of soft water, strain the liquor, and pour it into a stone jar. Scrub well -w^ith a soft brush and wash thirty pounds of purple beetroots, but on no account cut or break the skins, and boil them slowly till tender. WTien cold, peel and slice them into a tub, pour to them the sloe liquor, cover them up, and the following day add the rinds of three lemons and four Seville oranges, and twelve pounds of Smyrna raisins cut in halves. Boil twenty-six pounds of strong moist sugar with nine gallons and a half of soft water three-quarters of an hour, skimming it well, and pour it hot into the tub upon the sliced beetroots, &c. ; stir well, and when lukewarm work it well with eight tablespoonfuls of strong yeast, cover it up, and let it remain three days; then strain the liquor, and filter it into your caslc, filling to the bung. Let it work out, and when the fermentation is over, put to the wine six ounces of sugar-candy and a quart of French brandy. Then stop it up for a month, rack it oft', filter the lees, and put all again into the cask with an ounce of the best isinglass dissolved, and two ounces of bitter almonds blanched and slit. Secure the bung, and let the wine stand eighteen months ; then bottle it, seal the corks, and keep it a year longer. This is a nice light wine, and has frequently been introduced as claret. It improves greatly with age. — Itobinson. Wine, Birch.. — A wine used to be made from the sap of the birch-tree, though now it is scarcely known. The sap contains so much saccharine matter as to be fermented ; it is to be obtained in the month of March, when it begins to ascend, by boring a hole in each tree, about a foot from the ground, large enough to admit a faucet which is to be inserted. The sap will flow for several days into a vessel placed to receive it, without injury to the tree. Having obtained as much as is necessary, the hole should be stopped with a peg. To a gallon of this sap add a quart of honey or two pounds and a half of sugar, and boil them together, stirring the whole ; add also two ounces of hops for everj' nine gallons, a few cloves, and a rind or two of lemons. Ferment this with yeast, transfer it to the cask, refine with isinglass, and proceed as in making other British wines. In about two months the wine may be bottled, and in two months more it will be fit for use. It will improve by keeping. Wine Biscuits. — Dry one pound of flour and sift it, then rub into it a quarter of a pound of butter, and add three heaped table-spoonfuls of powdered white sugar, one well-beaten egg, and as much thick cream as will make a stiff" paste. Roll it out very thin, stamp it into shapes with the top of a wine-glass, and bake the biscuits on tins in a well-heated oven. A few currants or caraways may be added if liked. Time to bake the biscuits, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, lOd. for this quantity. Wine Biscuits (another way).— &■« Ladies' Wine Biscuits.