Autumn Edition Hoochy Mama

The cycle of hooch making is moving with the seasons. Honey & Plum wine is making way for cyser. The nice man at Number 10 Beltana Rd got very excited when the girls next door asked for a box of seconds for cider making - quickly returning with a whole box of cider apples. $25 bucks for the lot. Mix this with a $22 bucket of honey, some rain water, invite some wild roaming yeasts and off we go again! While using wild plums and peaches is definitely cheaper, you can't really argue with $2 a litre for good old fashioned no chemicals no sulfate cyser.

Today Sue and I racked this one into a new carboy. In retrospect I was glad we decided to do this on the back deck.......We still have to top it up with honey water and apple juice.

Top right of this little photo of the office/special projects/cat couch -but no bikes room is what we are calling the "Wax Moth and Fruit Fly" batch. This one is on its second ferment.

Ingredients include the honey from the wax from my last honey harvest, some wild apples, a few late plums(I think) and wild peaches. Total cost $5 for 500ml of extra honey. It took me a while to get around to making this lot - time enough for the fruit fly larvae in the peaches to hatch. And I can not guarantee it does not include wax moth eggs.......It is tasting very yummy. The wild peaches pack an almost unnatural flavour that is just exquisite. I have great hopes for this little batch.

Word around town is that the very meaty splendour like plums from the front yard make a somewhat cloying wine. The taste seems to be improving with time, so the remaining 9 bottles are under the house until further notice.

The original batches of hanging over fences lane way plum wine is improving with age also - it just gets better and better.

And finally, I crawled under the house to confirm that the demijohn (there's that beautiful word again) of ginger champagne is fermenting along nicely. The airlock is still in place and the seal is good. Fingers crossed she will continue a slow ferment all winter ready to be bottled around October.


That's it on the hooch front.

Upcoming projects include quince wine and perri (pear and honey cider). Unfortunately the fruit bats which have recently descended upon the ONC ate all the pears at Pialigo so I will have to search further afield for organic pears..............