Rhubarb is one of those wine foods that you either hate or love and rhubarb wine is not at the top of most people’s favorite wine list. There is, however, a group of people who make it and think it good, and one person on line compared it favorably to rose and there are even wine makers who make it for retail sales. With such favorable reports why not give it a try especially if you have a lot of rhubarb available. In 1909 when my paternal grandmother, Helen S. Wright, published her book:, Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines, she included two recipes for rhubarb wine differing significantly in their ingredients and approach.
In the words of my grandmother:
RUBARB WINE
To each gallon of juice add one gallon of soft water, in which seven pounds of brown sugar have been dissolved. Fill the keg or a barrel with this proportions, leaving the bung out, and keep it filled with sweetened water as it works over until clear; then two thousand gallons of wine to each acre of well cultivated plans. Fill the barrels and let them stand until spring, and bottle, as any wine will be better in glass or stone. Bong down or bottle as you desire. These stalks will furnish about three fourths their weight in juice, or from sixteen hundred to two thousand gallons of wine to each acre of well cultivated plants. Fill the barrels, and let them stand until spring, and bottle, any wine will be better in glass or stone.
RHUBARB WINE NO 2
Cut in bits and crush five pounds of rhubarb; add the thin yellow rind of a lemon, and one gallon of water, and let stand covered two day. Strain off the liquid and add four pounds of sugar and one gallon of water. Put this into a small cask with the bung-hole covered with muslin, and let it work two or three days.
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