Golden Carrot Wine

You will need

• Carrots1.8 kg
• Sugar1.3 kg
• Raisins, chopped300 g
• Oranges and lemons, juice of2 each
• Waterto 4.5 L
• White wine yeast + nutrient1 sachet

Picking it at the right moment

• Carrot

  Lift when a good size for the variety; sweeter after the first cold nights.

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise. Scrub and slice the carrots; simmer gently until just tender, keeping the liquor.

2. 2

   Strain the liquor (do not push the pulp through) onto the sugar, generous raisins and citrus juice; top to 4.5 L.

3. 3

   Cool, pitch yeast and nutrient (reading ~1.092), ferment out.

4. 4

   The lesson is simply time. The old name for this — 'carrot whisky' — is a joke about how raw and rough it is young, and a promise about what it becomes. It is thin and grassy at six months and golden, smooth and almost spirituous at two years. The extra raisins are there to give it something to mature into.

5. 5

   Rack it several times over the first year to keep it clean, then leave it alone.

6. 6

   Do not judge this wine until it has had eighteen months. It is the clearest lesson in the collection that country wine is made by waiting.