Monday 9 August 2010

Explosive elderflower champagne

On Saturday it was Dad's 80th birthday party held at my sister Esther's house in Newcastle. I supplied the homemade elderflower champagne. Two bottled are from last year, one from this year. All had a good fizz to them but when I opened the bottle made this year, the cork shot out. Fortunately, I was in the back garden. Nevertheless, the cork followed quite an impressive trajectory over the garden shed and landed some distance down the street!

And then overnight 4 of the 30 bottles I made in June decided to fire off their corks in the garage where they are brewing. Most of the bottles have corks rising from the nozzle and are only held in place by the wire cages put on them when they wwere first bottled. I fear however that we will lose more of them before the year is out.

Meanwhile, watch out for forthcoming posts on making red champagne. I first came across red champagne when I was in the Crimea five years ago. I haven't made it before but I guess I can ferment blackberry and elderberry juice in champagne bottles. The later blackberries will be better as they tend to be more juicy but setting it away in October should mean we can be drinking it in time for Christmas.

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