The brew cupboard

We’ve finished the last of the sloe wine that we had saved for the year-end celebrations;  the Bloke picked them in November, 2010, when we were on the Bridgewater.  It’s hard to believe that we managed to keep some wine for that long.  I’ll need to remind myself in a few months’ time how worthwhile it was.  And now it’s back to the summer’s elderflower wine, which was disappointing this year.

This year altogether was a lean one for hedgerow pickings, so we’re looking out for cheap deals on swedes or parsnips.  When the elderflower has been consumed, there’s a gallon of tea wine almost ready in the brew cupboard over the calorifier, and another of sage.  Sage we can grow in the greenhouse and on the boats’ roofs and tea wine we make from all the left-over herbal- and flower teas that were bought on a whim and now take up space going stale at the back of the cupboard.  They make an acceptable stand-by wine, but generally we don’t like to have to buy the main ingredient;  the finished product always seems to taste better when you’ve picked it yourself.