Fact: I am not sure there is a lovelier smell.
Unless of course we include the yummi smell of wildly fermenting honey and plum wine......
Technically this recipe is a T'ej which is Ethiopian for ....honey wine. There are lots of kinds of T'ej and apparently one kind is called "Saba T'ej" in reference to the Queen of Sheeba (Saba) who apparently shared a cuppla bottles with that old fox King Solomon once a long time ago.
Anyhoo, I really like the word "Saba" and have decided that my honey and plum wine will be called "Saba".
Fact: Even at 4 days old, Saba is DELICIOUS! The sweetness is being replaced by a nice tangy fizz which I like very much.
This whole Saba adventure is so much fun that I invested in a larger fermenting bucket and made another batch. Meet Honey and Plum Saba - Batch #2
Fact: you meet some nice people picking overhanging laneway plums just post dawn.
For more information about wild fermentation see here" Wild Fermentation
7 comments:
You are doing two things I would love to try someday, raising bees and making wine. I think your Saba sounds wonderful.
Hi Laura Thanks for visiting. Check out the "backwards Beekeeping" people - they are doing some wonderful stuff about helping folks get into simple, natural, organic bee keeping. And they are your country folk! They have some really good little youtube clips and videos on their website.
Amd this wine gig is too much fun - all you need is a bucket!
cheers
Duckie
I think we might need to get our heads together and write a list of wild foods for gathering...all the plums on roadside in Murrum have got about three more weeks to go and I'm so impatient! Love the name of your wine, especially when your name is parked in front of it! We are bottling ginger beer tonight, into recycled soft drink bottles so we don't have any explosions, fingers crossed...
Hi Alyson! Happy 2010. I reckon it would be quite a list! Mr BVVF suggested doing the same thing but using google earth. A secret treasure map. The rain we had over Christmas should be almost enough to keep the "long paddock" fruit coming along nicely. There are some splendiferous canning peaches on the road between Young and Grenfell that should be ready next time I go to Condobolin......
good luck with the plums!
And I hope that the ginger beer bottling went well.
cheers
duckie xxx
Honey and plum wine!!Delicious!!!
That Saba looks and sounds lovely! I'll definately give that a go one day. Off to check out your suggested 'Backwards Beekeeping'. Thanks :-)
Thanks for posting this (and the links to other bee resources), it has been great reading about your bee exploits and your wine making.
There is a wild bee hive in a tree on the path that I walk each day. On hot days it is not unusual to smell the scent of honey drifting from it. It's quite wonderful.
I have been thinking about setting up a hive here at home for some time, but it's not the right time yet. Once it is though, I think that your wine making would be a great use for some of the product. I love honey, but don't use a lot of it, so making wine, or mead would be excellent to prevent it from going to waste.
We get a lot of wild fruit around here too - assuming that there is any rain in October, November, and December. Sadly there has been nothing this year though.
The idea of combining the honey with the fruit is great.
I am about to start brewing beer so will have the necessary fermenter for making wine too.
Thanks for your blog, it's a great read.
Post a Comment