Blackberry picking season is well and truly upon us, and to mark this wonderful time of the fruitful frugal kitchen, the wife and I both have a week off from work. We are aiming to pick enough blackberries to make at least 20 gallons of blackberry wine - and as we need about 4lb of blackberries per gallon, we have a serious amount of picking to under take in order to collect the full 80lb required. We will be at it most days! I will update you all with the progress and our extra special blackberry wine recipe soon!
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In our quest for a self sufficient, frugal and low impact lifestyle, we have had to take a good long look at our consumer shopping habits and the foods that we consume. Where we can, we want to grow and produce as much as we can. We have the fruit and veg sorted, growing well in the allotments. We have a breeding trio of rabbits to provide us with meat. We also make our own wine to give us a few gallons of pleasure. One of the things that we do buy and need to reduce is sugar. As a family, we do buy a lot of the white stuff. Not to eat nor to add to cuppa’s, but for the purpose of winemaking. What we really want and need to do, is start producing our own honey so that we can make mead instead of wine. This would greatly reduce our food miles of our homebrew and also reduce costs for us. At the moment, our wine is produced for about 10 pence a bottle - due to the quantity of sugar added. If we use our honey, we will get the cost right the way down to 0p, and for a far superior bottle of mead. The quest now is to build, beg, borrow and acquire a few beehives and learn all the skills needed to produce our own honey. I will update you all with this process and progress. A quick review of my 2013 Carrot wine and the verdict is - Blimmin' goergious. It's smooth and sophisticated, like drinking a bottle of Bill Withers, not only with the sunshine. This carrot wine is similar to a chardonney, full of butter flavours and lingers on the tounge. The exotic aroma and sure fire boldness of the carrot sure will love you long time. I will post up the recipe in the imminent future, but you will have to wait until the autumn for the "How to" video.
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