Ok so the last post left you with the stewing stage. Where the grapes would leach out their beautiful flavours. Also I should mention at this stage I went and bought some cranberries at the lovely Hale Mirowskie as well, as I have always wanted to make a liqueur with them.
Over the next 2 months, these soaked and released their lovely flavours. I would assist them by shaking them fiercely on a regular basis, and also sampling them on odd occasions too. The grapes developed wonderfully in flavour. To be honest, they have the taste of an alcoholic Ribena! The cranberries had a fresh and wonderful smell, but their taste was really astringent. After tasting it, you would end up making the face as if you had eaten a lemon. So I was forced to add a touch more brown sugar. Not much, about a half a cup or so. This worked well, so then just before Christmas, it was time to finish them off.
First I needed to drain the liquid away to leave just the fruit.
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I did both the grape pulp above, and the cranberries below which I hadn't pulped like the way I had with the grapes.
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So as we didn't have a press or any fancy muslin bags, we went and bought some sterile gauze from the pharmacy.
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I then squeezed away, releasing all the trapped liquid, and most importantly, lots and lots of flavour.
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The end result is a much drier pulp than went in.
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And of course a delicious and dark looking liquid.
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Finally we poured it all into some bottles we had saved from previous alcoholic "research", and of course, this is environmentally friendly, as we are re-using these bottles which is better than recycling!
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The end products are really lovely. The grape is on the left and the cranberry is on the right. From a distance, you would think they are just a red wine and a rose. But they both have beautiful flavours to them, and the natural and brown sugars within have made them slightly syrupy.
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Happy days!
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