ELDERBERRY WINE.

Gather the elderberries when quite ripe; put them into a stone jar,
mash them with a round stick, and set them in a warm oven, or in a
large kettle of boiling water till the jar is hot through, and the
berries begin to simmer. Then take them out, and press and strain them
through a sieve. To every quart of juice allow a pound of Havanna or
Lisbon sugar, and two quarts of cold soft water. Put the sugar into a
large kettle, pour the juice over it, and, when it has dissolved, stir
in the water. Set the kettle over the fire, an& boil and skim it till
the scum ceases to rise. To four gallons of the liquor add a pint and a
half of brandy. Put it into a keg, and let it stand with the bung put
in loosely for four or five days, by which time it will have ceased to
ferment. Then stop it closely, plastering the bung with clay. At the
end of six months, draw off a little of it; and if it is not quite
clear and bright, refine it with the whites and shells of three or four
eggs, beaten to a stiff froth and stirred into a quart of the wine,
taken out for the purpose and then returned to the cask; or you may
refine it with an ounce or more of dissolved isinglass. Let it stand a
week or two, and then bottle it.

This is an excellent domestic wine, very common in England, and
deserving to be better known in America, where the elderberry tree is
found in great abundance. Elderberry wine is generally taken mulled
with spice, and warm.
